


The Path of Fate

by Elderon



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied Relationships, Luz is the smartest dumbass you'll ever meet, Magic, Mommy and Daddy Issues, Not Canon Compliant, Polyamory, Reunions, Sci-Fi Elements, because i believe in poly lesbian emira rights, but with machines now, it is my fic and i get to make willow and boscha banter like an old married couple, luz is still a dumbass, wow kinda sorta maybe boschlow but they kinda anxious doe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 30,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26120089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elderon/pseuds/Elderon
Summary: With the portal to the human world destroyed, Luz Noceda has been stuck in exile for the past four years, hiding from the emperor's coven for fear of capture, or worse.Meanwhile, Amity has just been admitted to the coven of her dreams- until she finds out what she must do in order to be initiated; capture the most prolific curator of wild magic in the Boiling Aisles. Capture the human who had reawakened the ancient arts, Luz Noceda.(Previously titled Unfortunate Ardor, going through editing process)
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Emira Blight/Original Character(s), Emira Blight/Viney
Comments: 108
Kudos: 368





	1. Chapter 1

Dear Diary,

Wow. That sounded weird. Isn’t it interesting how time can change you so much? I think it’s been almost four years since I wrote to you, but I feel like something is coming to a turning point right now, and I want to document it just in case this is my last entry.

Stuff just hasn’t been the same without Eda around. She presumably ‘ran away’ from the emperor’s castle and is in hiding, but I’m not dumb. Eda was the least compliant person she had ever known, and in her cursed state? She could hardly imagine it took longer than a week for Belos to execute her.

Ugh, this is hard to write about. But it’s been so long since then, it's about time I move on.

Anyways… last I left off… ah, it has to be when I got expelled from Hexside by the Emperor himself because of my association with Eda, and how I took her place after her capture. I wanted to get out of here as fast as possible after that, but I made the mistake of leaving the portal case in plain sight. Lilith destroyed it on one of her covert missions before I had figured out how to cloak the house. 

Of course, Belos just wanted to kill me himself, but with the illusion spells I’ve cast over the house and Hooty as defense, none of his witches have been able to get to me. But recently, in the air, I’ve sensed something odd. Ever since I became in touch with ancient magic, I’ve been able to tell when I’m near certain magical sources or strong sources of emotion, and these past few days, I’ve sensed overwhelming amounts of both, and they’re strong. I fear that they’ll be coming for me next. Not to say that I’m not prepared. I have enough magical bile stocked up to last me years, and the stuff is powerful.

If worse comes to worst, though… I guess you’ll know, huh?    
I guess I’d also like this to be my final farewell to my mom if I never get to see her again. And… also, an apology... for me not wanting to be normal. If I had just been obedient for once, things wouldn’t have turned out like this. I could have been home by now, spent my days with family in my own home instead of in this foreign otherworld.

If anybody finds this, if things really have gotten to that point- please, give this to mi mamá.

Signing off, 

Luz


	2. Chapter 2

Luz didn’t think she was a bad person. 

She was just good at recycling. The elastic of her gloves snapped gently against her wrist as she went to work on the monster Hooty had found dead in the woods. She was about 5 feet long, a magical inchworm. Through experimenting, she had found these magical beings to have the easiest parts to work with. Her flesh was still warm as Luz made the first incision along her stomach. Expertly, she reached in and located the magical bile sack. She tied the circulation off with a thin thread, then extracted the organ.

It was just like their dissection assignments back home in Biology. Lungs, ribs, stomach, intestines… just now, with an additional organ that grew almost like a parasite beside the heart. Luckily, the work had never grossed her out, and she considered it fine morally since all of her specimens had died of natural causes. 

Though she had yet to master keeping the tissue alive artificially, she could still empty the liver and purify the bile in her makeshift lab setup sprawled through the main hall of the owl house. In the corner of the room, her glass cylinder glowed an unnatural green, filled with the purified bodily fluid.

Luz was really glad she had paid attention in science at Hexside before getting expelled. Thanks to the course, she hadn’t wasted a single magical body part that had come into her possession.

Realistically, she should have been more proud of her inventions. Being the first modern witch to somewhat reawaken the ancient arts was no small accomplishment, and that was ignoring the fact that she was a human, presumably unable to do magic at all.

The big secret was simple; take what you don’t have. She poured the content of the liver into a pump, then under a flame to burn off the bacteria, leaving only the purest casting solution. The liquid was then siphoned into the cylinder. 

Witches back then had to extract magical energy from the creatures that possessed it, as they didn’t have any for themselves. It also turned out that when it’s done like that, the magic becomes… stronger, more refined.

She had taught herself how to summon certain things with this type of magic, all through the power of an invention she created herself, dubbed her ‘infusion glove’. She poured a bit of the bile into the glass canister attached to the device and locked it into place, then drew a wide circle across the table. Up rose a tea set, already piping hot and ready. She muttered a quiet congratulations to herself before lifting one of the cups to her lips and taking a tentative sip. Rosehip tea, her favorite. There weren’t any roses in the Boiling Aisles, so she had to summon it from the other side if she wanted any.

That was the difficult thing about summoning; it wasn’t a precise art. She could aim for summoning a pencil and get a marker, or sometimes something completely random if she wasn’t focused. It always depended on what was available and existing in real-time. She couldn’t build matter, only relocate it. That was her biggest hurdle; being able to completely focus and pray that this specific thing exists at that moment.

She seated herself, preparing to finish the pot.

That’s when the tremors started. She leaped to her feet, trying to target the source of the magic, but it was too late. All it took was a glance out the window to show her exactly what had happened- Belos’s coven had enchanted the entire house. It was already about 100 feet in the air.

“Shit.” Luz smacked herself. Now they had captured her, all because she let her guard down for a second.

“Owlbert! King! C’mere, we’re leaving!” King stumbled out of his room, clearly disoriented. 

“Luz! What’s going on?” He stumbled forward a few steps, then fell onto his face when another tremor rocked the house. Luz hung onto the window sill for support.

“The emperor’s coven. They found us. We need to get out of here, now! Owlbert!” The house was reaching dangerous heights. She could tell they were getting closer to the emperor- his magical presence made the hair on her arms raise.

Finally, Owlbert smashed through the last pile of junk in his way and hurdled into her open palm. She ran across the creaking floorboards, scooping up King and slinging her backpack over her shoulder, hurriedly shoving in some essential supplies, but most importantly, the cylinder.

“Hold on, King!” As quickly as she could, Luz traced a wide circle on the wall, a fire spell, and shot out of the building as soon as the material crumbled to ash. Behind her and from the ground, she heard shouts of outrage. A few balls of fire flung past her. Luckily, none hit her, but the heat was intense, singing the hair off one of her forearms. After about 30 minutes of flight, she was fairly sure they had escaped the wrath of the coven- for now.

King’s claws dug into the skin on her back. They had been going so fast for fear of pursuit that he had visibly started to shake. She patted Owlbert’s head lightly.

“Hey, bud, we can stop now.” He hooted softly, spiraling down into the forest below. They were… very far from home. Before they cleared the trees, she did a 180, astounded to see no familiar property nearby, the only sign of civilization being a little forest-nestled town several miles away. 

She slung off her backpack, peeled off her infusion glove, dropping it into her sack, then released Owlbert from the staff. He hopped about, pecking at seeds on the ground.

Not even the peaks of the giant beast’s rib cage could be seen from there. Which was… probably good. It meant there was plenty of distance between herself and Belos. 

But it also meant she was far, far away from her friends. She didn’t know what had happened to most of the other kids at school after she was kicked out, but Willow and Gus remained her reliable friends, even in exile. They had comforted her when she was mourning Eda, visited her every now and again to keep herself company, held some fun moonlight summonings, and even celebrated her birthday together, despite the fact that they didn’t quite understand the concept of a piñata. And, as it turned out, Willow was a fantastic baker! She had made her some of the most delicious cakes and chocolate chip cookies Luz had ever tasted.

She sighed in defeat, slumping against a nearby trunk whilst nimbly scratching King’s head. The positive energy her friends had instilled in her seeped into the ground like water, now that she was so far away, in such a hopeless situation. They had taken the entire owl house, Hooty included, which meant their chances of getting the place back were practically nonexistent.

With the nostalgic memories flooding through her system, another familiar face popped up. One she had… mixed feelings about.

Amity.

Her name meant friend. So why was it that the second she was expelled, Amity decided that Luz was no longer worthy of her time?

She visited a few times afterward, but she was… different, so stiff and unemotional. Almost… sad. Obviously, something had changed for her.

After a week in exile, she never saw the girl again. Not to visit, not in the market- hell, not even with her siblings! Emira and Edric were frequently out, and stopped to say hi if they ever saw her in the town square, updating her on all of the illegal things they had gotten away with in the recent past. On several occasions, they had left her gifts for her, which turned out to be boxes filled with enchanted confetti or paper snakes, but the thought was still sweet.

The thing was, she and Amity were incredibly close before then, far closer than her and the twins, probably even closer than she was with Willow and Gus! They had spent plenty of fond occasions together- once, Luz had taught her what a ‘sleepover’ was, and Amity was so excited that she made them have one every week. Not that she was complaining. Being around Amity was like taking a stroll through an enchanted garden; full of mystery and intrigue... She loved it, and wanted nothing more than to spend countless hours with it to understand it, identifying every flower and growing closer to complete unity. 

She  _ wanted _ to understand her, why her walls were so hard to break down, why she had put them up in the first place, and she almost did- when in a moment she probably later regretted, Amity came undone. It was at one of their sleepovers, only a few days before her exile. She had broken down into tears after Luz had accidentally brought up parental issues. After she got ahold of herself, she halfheartedly explained  _ why, _ why she had acted like that at first, why she was who she was.

Her parents didn’t ever really care about her, they cared about the family image she projected. When her brown hair didn’t fit the picture, they dyed it; when her friends didn’t have status, they got rid of them. And because of that, she was driven, controlled by the voice inside her head that kept on telling her that she needed to forge her own path and prove that she could be her own person, that the only standards she needed to meet were her own. And there, just on the cusp of figuring everything out, why she had put those walls up, what her motives for joining the emperor’s coven were, how she was even allowed to have Luz over- Amity shut down.

“...I’m tired. Let’s go to sleep.”   
“O-ok.”

It wasn’t her fondest or proudest memory, but it definitely stuck out from the rest to her. That particular visit, while she was around the witch, her heart felt like it was stuck in a washing machine, fluttering about aimlessly. She never quite understood why, though.

“Hey King, are you doing alright now?” He nodded meekly, curling up against Luz’s chest. 

“M’kay. Owlbert?” He flew over and landed on the tip of her shoe, looking at her sideways. “You have the energy to fly us to that nearby town?” He hooted in response, latching back onto the palisman staff. After gathering all of her things, she straddled the object again, cradling King in her arm.

“Alright. Lets go.” The ride over was very brief. She pulled up her hood and strolled over to the motel nearby. A reptilian man sat behind the counter, looking through some assorted paperwork.

“How much for one night?” 

“We only do two or more night stays.” Luz narrowed her eyes. She hadn’t really been planning on staying there for long, but once she thought about it, she had no idea where to go from there. She had no home to go back to, no way of fixing the magical portal, and hell, she stood no chance against Belos, even without his massive coven army. A few days of planning would enable her to get ready for whatever the future might hold.

“Fine. Make it two nights. How much?”   
“10 snails.” She whistled in appreciation, forking over the money. He handed her a key. 

“Room 07, just down the hall and to your right.” Luz thanked him, then strolled down the small corridor and entered her room. It wasn’t much, but for 5 snails a night? She might have to come back to this place, just for the killer rent.

Back at the clerk’s desk, his tongue flicked out in excitement as he dialed a few numbers into his scroll.

“Hello? Emperor’s Coven? I’m calling on the subject of that wanted human… what was her name, Luz?...”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Malin Gael? Recognize the name? Yeah <3

A thick stack of application papers sat piled up on her desk. She had just finished reading through all of them, signing off at the bottom.

That meant her quest was finally complete. All she needed to do was go and turn in her paperwork at the Emperor’s Palace and she would be admitted.

It was all she had ever wanted, everything she had been working towards since she was a child.

So what was up with the negative energy spiraling inside her? She didn’t feel excited, not even proud, just… scared.

She swallowed hard, gathering the paperwork and shoving it into her bag. She masked the feeling with something else; the realization that she would finally be free. No longer living in her prison of a home would probably help clear her head. She chirped for her palisman.

“Malin Gael! C’mere, we’re leaving!” Suddenly, the albino fox bounded around the corner, leaping into her arms with a satisfied chitter. She scratched his belly for a moment, then allowed him to reattach himself to her palisman rod.

She left with no warning, not saying goodbye to her parents or good-for-nothing older siblings. They deserved none of it, no recognition for her accomplishments. If they couldn’t appreciate her at times when she was only being herself, they didn’t get to take credit for how she turned out; a record-breaking abomination student and supposed successor to Lillith because of her promise shown as a student and a pupil. If they were curious, they could look out the window and wave as she loaded the last of her things into her u-chariot.

“Thanks for the ride, sir. Keep the change.” She tossed him a sack of ~25 snails and crossed the bridge over into the Emperor’s castle. Lilith greeted her at the entrance.

“Ah! Amity, you’re finally here, it’s lovely to see you again. Just drop off your paperwork with Kikimora over there and I’ll lead to your new coven group.” She followed Lilith’s instruction, then followed her through the twisting halls of the castle. Oh, she was definitely going to get lost in these halls. Each wall was identical, except for one pane that they were fast encroaching on- a massive stained glass portrait of Belos looking straight forward, whilst in the background, a gigantic purple claw sits open, in a position that suggests it was about to grasp the floating orb above it. In itself, the art wasn’t that creepy, but there was something deeply unsettling that she felt when passing it. There was witch's blood in the glass. She didn’t understand how she could tell, or why it even made sense that there was blood in there in the first place, but she could sense it; their dying agony, their inability to leave this world because of the fleshy bits that were left behind. 

She could only imagine that it was some divine punishment for those who truly disobeyed Belos, since that aura was almost definitely a sign of an evilly cast enchantment.

“Are you ok, Amity?” She hadn’t realized it, but a thin sheen of sweat was forming on her face as she realized what the emperor had done. One of her clammy hands combed through her hair in an attempt to pass it off as nothing.

“Haha, of course I’m fine! Are we almost there?” She nodded, coming to a sudden stop, and pointed at a symbol on the wall. She pressed her hand to the rune.

“Aperi mihi, Amphora.” The stone wall slid into the ground. “Remember those words. That’s the password for getting in.” Lilith walked inside, followed closely by Amity.

“Was that first part… Latin?”

“Yes. Good work, my pupil. Do you know what the last word means?” Amity shook her head. “It’s the name of this coven group. Ah, Amphora, what a fine name.” Lilith came to a stop, gesturing widely to the room they had just entered. Around 12 other people sat around the room, looking at her oddly.

“This is your main hall, down to the right are your rooms, Straight across is the kitchen, and over there are the restrooms. Oh! I almost forgot. Here.” Lilith summoned a box about the size of a large shoebox and handed it off to her. “Your uniform. Don’t forget to change, there’s an introductory ceremony soon.” With that, Lilith left, and the room erupted in noise. Everybody flipped up their helmets, standing to come and greet the newbie. She was immediately bombarded with questions.

“Where did you graduate from?” “How old are you?” “Wow, your hair looks so weird, can I touch it?” “You’re Lilith’s protégé? That’s so cool!” “I’ve never seen a birch fox palisman before!” Amity stuck up her hands in defense, cowering away from the large crowd.

“Hey, guys, back off. You guys are obviously overwhelming her. Sit down.” With a quiet grumble of agreement, the jolly mob all sat back down on the couches, resuming in normal conversation. The woman stuck out her hand. Her nails were long and hot pink. “Sorry about them. They’re easily excitable. I’m Opal, ringmaster of the Amphora sector.” Amity took her hand and shook it cautiously. “Don’t worry kid, I don’t bite.” She rolled her eyes, all three of them. “I understand that you’re the Amity Blight I’ve heard so much about? It’s good to finally meet you.” She blinked, trying to remember why this woman looked so familiar. Then it all finally clicked; the pale pink skin, the third eye…

“Are you Boscha’s sister?” She laughed.

“Guilty as charged, ha! Didn’t take you long to figure that out. But if it concerns you at all, I’m nowhere near as uptight and angry as Boscha. I actually like to make friends, and not scare them away with screaming, you know?” Amity let out a little giggle. “Ok kid, you should probably go find a bunk and put your stuff away. Don’t wanna be late to the introductory ceremony!” She patted the younger witch on the back and then walked away in the direction of the kitchen.

The sleeping quarters weren’t much, but her bed was nice and cushy, so she didn’t mind. She slid her suitcase underneath the bed frame, then released Malin from the palisman pole.

“Now now, I’m only letting you off because you’ve been good for a while, but if I hear that you start causing trouble, you’re coming right back here. Understood?” He squeaked happily, bounding out of the room quickly. He had never been the most well-behaved fox, or the most cooperative palisman, but he was amiable, so she hoped it didn’t become an issue. After all, she had seen plenty of her comrades playing with their palismans in the foyer.

Her mind went back to the uniform. She had to change before that ceremony thing Opal had talked to her about.

“Is everything here enchanted..?” In her studies, she had learned how to sense magical energy. This place almost reeked of it. Her uniform was enchanted with some kind of protection aura, probably meant to repel attacks. 

She slipped into the clothing. It fit surprisingly well. The silky fabric was fairly comfortable, but she was going to have an issue with the boots. Every witch knew that downward pointed shoes were the peak of fashion nowadays. Upwards facing points were so 18th century.

She secured the poncho around her neck, then finally picked up the accent piece of the set; the helmet. It resembled the skull of a bird, like a crow. If she stared for too long, it almost appeared that the eye sockets were smoldering blue, piercing through her soul. 

She shuddered and quickly placed the helmet on her head. It was cold against her scalp. She gasped as it molded itself to her skull, creating a perfect fit.

“Hm… impressive.” Though this was definitely not her style of outfit, it didn’t look half bad. She threw the cape out to the side dramatically, striking a pose. It was a solid 7/10 on the flutter scale. 

She exited the dorm and reentered the foyer. Everybody turned to look at her, then burst into applause. Someone hooted in approval. 

“Welcome to the team, rookie.” Opal patted her on the back, sipping on a steaming cup of coffee. “S’ that your dog?” She pointed to Malin, who was curled up sleeping next to a few recruits. 

“He’s my fox. But he would make an interesting dog.” She laughed at the comment. It still baffled her that somebody like Opal could even be related to Boscha. She was so kind, leaderly but not oppressive, fun but not so much that it obstructs her control over a situation. 

It had been a while since she’d last seen Boscha. Last Amity had heard, she was on a scholarship in a Grudgby coven. Which was… to be expected. Boscha had little intellect outside the sport, so it was good that she was at least going somewhere in life, though she doubted it’s helped with her little ego problem.

“By the way, Opal… were you briefed about me coming..? I know a lot of new people just arrived today, but I thought it was a little bit weird that you already knew my face by name…”

“Oh! No, I was just told that we would be receiving about 6 newbies today, I knew about you because of your sister. You’re in all the family portraits.” Amity gasped.

“You know my sister? How?” She looked up at the girl in confusion. “I’m fairly sure I’ve never seen you before today.” 

“Ok, well, first… you know the way Emira swings… right?” She did an overly dramatic hand gesture.

“Of course. Do I honestly look straight to you, Opal?” 

“I had a feeling. Boscha told me all about your thing for that human girl back in freshman year.” She flushed, averting her gaze. “Oh sorry, is that a touchy subject..? Forget it.” She sat down in a plush armchair, gesturing for Amity to sit in the one next to her. “Well, anyways… I’m dating your sister. Ta-da!” She did awkward jazz hands to accompany the statement.

“Dating… Emira? For how long?”

“Almost five years now, I think… Though I’ll admit I’m surprised you think you’ve never seen me before. I’ve been invited to all of your family parties, you know, because of status…”

“I- on second thought, you seem somewhat familiar- did you use to have a buzzcut?” She nodded, recalling the time period fondly.

“Sophmore year was something else… hey, did you know that we gave each other matching stick-n-pokes at that year’s Gala?”

“What?”

“Oh, I’m sure that’ll be a fun conversation. Tell Emira I send my condolences next time you see her.” Amity tried to think of all of the things Emira had declined to share with her, all the illegal and shady things that would have her grounded for months if mom or dad ever found out. Even all of this- it felt like only the tip of the iceberg.

“Could I see the tattoo?” Opal’s face got even pinker, if that was possible.

“Oh, wow, look at the time!” She stood up and loudly cleared her throat. “Recruits! Put away your palismans, we’re leaving for the introductory ceremony! Let’s go!” Amity had a nagging feeling that they had been giving each other tattoos in places… socially unacceptable for two 16-year-olds. But, to be fair, this was Emira they were talking about. Since when did she care about what was and wasn’t accepted by society? She digressed, scooping up a clearly annoyed Malin Gael and returning him to his palisman state, then exiting the chamber with the rest of the Amphora sector. 

The group traversed the halls for a few minutes before finally coming upon a massive auditorium, packed with hundreds- no, thousands- of recruits, all dressed in the exact same attire. Opal smacked her helmet down.

“I know you’re new here, kid, but it’s extremely disrespectful to be unmasked around Emperor Belos.” Her voice was muffled a little bit through the helmet.

 _This is a cult._ She was glad she didn’t say it out loud, but stars, if the cult vibes weren’t enough, there was also the extremely foreboding prophetic stained glass mural of Belos, the identical costumes, hell, she knew crows were a symbol of death, and here she was, wearing a helmet akin to their skull.

She felt panic rising in her throat as she sat down with her group. Everybody else seemed far too calm, were they stupid? Did they not see what… what was…

A wave of calmness washed over her like an ocean tide. She exhaled passively, bowing her head delicately as Belos entered the room. Her fists uncurled, her jaw relaxed; her entire body fell submissively to the presence of the Emperor. He began speaking in his deep, booming voice, but she could hardly hear him. It sounded like ocean waves were receding in and out within her head, making her sleepy, unattentive.

Suddenly, she snapped back to attention as Kikimora began to speak. Her voice was shrill in comparison, much harder to listen to, even harder to sleep to.

“...initiation trials. Every single new recruit is expected to complete this mission in order to be fully inaugurated into the coven. Sector headmasters, come to the front and collect your assignments.” Around 100 people from around the room, including Opal, flocked to the bottom of the stage and each grabbed a file as people began exiting the auditorium. On the walk back, Opal began leafing through the papers, calling out names and passing them out to a few of the other people in their ensemble. 

“Amity Blight…” Opal sounded confused. She squinted at the paper critically.

“Is there something wrong with my quest?” 

“I- I don’t think this is bad, but I’ve certainly never seen anything like it before.” She passed Amity the paper. Merely printed on the sheet was her full name, and below it…

_See Emperor Belos. Attendants will be sent._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emira is a raging stoner lesbian, change my mind


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the finale has left me in PAINNNN ughhh,, but with that being said this fic diverges from canon in episode 18 so i am choosing to ignore episode 19 for my personal wellbeing

“You’re sure this isn’t a bad thing?”

“Of course not… I think- but don’t worry!” Opal looked very worried. “This probably just means the Emperor is giving you an important quest and wanted to personally address you.” 

“That sounds really scary.” Opal just nodded, sending another batch of ingredients across the room. It was a fascinating process, seeing one cook with magic. The knives thinly sliced the onions and tomatoes, floating mallets mixed and pounded the ground meat (and Opal’s vegetarian burger… mush) into patties, then spatulas cooked them, allowing them to sizzle quietly in the pan. The delicious scent of frying burgers filled the air

“Do you usually cook like this?”   
“Yeah… ever since I burnt myself with that fu- um, that cast iron, I’ve felt no inclination to touch it again.” She raised her right hand, turning it so that Amity could see the scarred tissue.    
“That looks awful. How did a pan do that to you?”

“I think somebody might have hexed the stove to be extremely hot before I started working .” She made a motion with her hand, which flipped the finished burgers onto a platter.    
“Can you go put out some plates and silverware? I can handle the rest of the assembly.”    
“Sure, no problem.”

The main hall was once again lively and abuzz. For the first time, it felt comfortable being around them all. Everybody was wearing their pajamas and lounging about, which probably made the crucial difference; it was hard to talk to others or even see who they are properly under the giant helmets.

She set down the dining ware and went in for her first conversation. The girl next to her had curly green hair that reached just past her waist. It reminded her of her sister, but the comforting expression she wore on her face set the thought out of her mind. She laughed at a joke somebody had said, then noticed her staring.

“Oh, hey there newbie. How are ya?” She had a thick accent, something she would, in human terms, probably call Irish. It was pleasant to listen to.

“I’m doing ok. What’s your name?” 

“I’m Eloise! That’s Jasmine, over there is Andrew, and Lonnie- oh, can’t forget Medici…” Somebody’s ferret palisman, presumably Medici, chittered at the sound of his name. She rattled off, naming everybody in the room, then finally came back to look at her. “And you’re Amity, right? It’s good to finally talk to you. First day treatin’ you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just been… a difficult transitional period.” Amity looked to her feet, pondering if she should bring up the concerns she couldn’t shake from her head. She steeled her nerves. “Do you guys find it at all kind of… creepy around here..? Especially near the Emperor?” Eloise’s pleasant smile dropped. The room went silent.

“You wouldn’t be questioning our lord’s authority, would you?”    
“Ha ha, of course not..! Probably just first-day jitters, that’s all.” She grinned awkwardly, staring at the silent crowd. 

Thank the stars, Opal finished assembly right on time. The kitchen door burst open, and out came a huge platter of the various accoutrements for the dish, followed by the plain assembled burgers themselves. She set them down on the table next to the plates and bowed dramatically

“Dinner is served, ‘Phoras.” She grabbed her veggie burgers and sat down at a table by the sofa, tuning the crystal ball into the local news station. Some garbage about another Gladiator Felines convention, since the past one was interrupted when a wild direbeast stampede wrecked the vendor’s hall.

She loaded her plate up with a few helpings and went over to eat with Opal. The regular buzz of chatter was once again prevalent, but she decided to give everybody some time away from her, just in case they were still acting weird. 

“Hey kid. How was that for a first day?” The mince was delicious and juicy, blending the flavors of the homemade buns and fresh vegetables all together. 

She never got food like that back home, never ate anything so magical yet unenchanted, because love truly did make a dish. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.    
“Hey, it’s ok-” She reached out and clasped Amity’s hand between her own and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Transitioning to coven life isn’t easy. It’s hard at first, but I promise you if you stay strong, you will get through this unscathed.” Amity nodded, furiously wiping away the moisture from her eyes. She hated crying in front of other people, but Opal seemed to see it not as a sign of weakness but a sign of humanity, and… she appreciated that.

It truly felt like Opal and she made up the only people in the entire coven who hadn’t been brainwashed to idolize Belos.

She squeezed her eyes shut and relished in the warmth of the nurturing hold on her hand. Only one day in, and this stranger had shown more interest in acting as the maternal figure in her life than her own given mother.

“You ok?”   
“I’m fine, just a bit emotional. Thank you, Opal.” She finished her food and left for her dorm. She was sure that the others would be out for a few more hours until Opal forced them all to go to bed. Considering her emotional state, skipping the whole ordeal entirely sounded better to her. She slipped into her sheets, allowing the exhaustion that had been budding up inside her all day to knock her out.

* * *

Kikimora, for her size, walked incredibly fast. Amity had to take wide paces to keep up. 

“Amity Blight, of the esteemed Blight family, be honored. The Emperor himself is giving you this very important mission, so very important that he insisted on delivering it to you personally.” The deeper they trailed into the heart of the castle, the uneasier her senses grew. The entire castle seemed to have a hum of life to it, in the most off-putting way possible. Oddly bent pipes zigzagged across the ceilings and walls like veins, bring in all resources to the central organ; the heart.

Even standing outside of the throne room, the beating of the castle’s massive heart could be felt through the floor. It made her feel nauseous. Her knees threatened to give way right then and there.

“Come now, child. The Emperor awaits.” As if on cue, the giant steel doors flung open forebodingly. She swallowed hard and entered the room.

“Ah, greetings, Amity Blight.” His head was poised at a sickening angle that in no way seemed naturally possible. He lifted up his hands and corrected its placement. 

“No point in blathering on with pleasantries, I’ll try to be concise here. After all, this is a time-sensitive case.” His eyes glowed a terrifying green. “You, of all applicants to my coven, were by far the most remarkable. This has earned you a special place in this coven, and therefore, a special quest. One of utmost importance.” She fell to one knee at the base of his throne. Somehow, the fear she had felt dissolved. She felt only reverence, the need to worship this witch-

“Your job is to hunt down the rogue human.” Amity’s mind froze. He couldn’t be talking about- no, that was definitely it. There was one rogue human in this realm, and she just so happened to be the one rogue splinter that lodged its way into her heart.    
“Sir, with all due respect, I-”

“We received a call from the Birchlands Inn yesterday, informing us of the human’s presence at their hotel. She will be staying until tomorrow morning. That gives you the rest of today to stage your attack plan and execute it.” 

“Sir, please, is this really necessary-” He didn’t give her interruption a second thought, proceeding with his speech.

“She has been stealing the magical energy from us for too long. She is human. The magical arts and humans do not cross paths. Which is why I need you to find her and capture her. Bring her back alive.” He stared down at her like she was a piece of gum he had stepped on. “Do you have any objections, Blight?”

“N-no. I won’t fail you, Emperor Belos.”

“You are dismissed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK i did not write an entire character up to date emira only to realize viney x emira is a thing,,, somebody pls hit me w a shoe  
> anyways kudos to everybody who can pick out the references in this chapter


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol sorry short chapter for today, but there's a bigger one coming up ;)

Her mind was empty. It was a clear plane, a void, lacking substance, or meaning. Perfect.

She relaxed, letting the landscape melt into her vision. A flowery bluff, surrounded in tall grasses. The ocean crashed against the high cliffside the way she was facing, and behind, the dark forest loomed over her like an encroaching beast with long, gleaming claws. 

A gust of wind swirled pink blossoms around her, and her memory clicked.

How could she ever forget Grom night?

She had fought the beast with Amity, right on this exact bluff.

The answer to this vision still remained unformed and convoluted, unable to take shape in her mind yet. Why would the stars take her here? What… were they trying to tell her..?

She sighed in defeat, opening her eyes. King and Owlbert ran about in the moonlight beside her, tossing each other about playfully. It wasn’t unusual for the prophecies that came to her to be flashbacks to a certain event or place, but the meaning was usually more… clear. 

She wished she had actually met a master of the peculiar arts instead of having to figure everything out herself, having to work through the emotional drainage, the lack of understanding when it came to figuring out who, or what, brought the visions to her. They had just started occurring every time she closed her eyes, since that seance she performed that officially united her and the ancient magical arts. Must have been a part of the fine print of the imaginary contract she unknowingly signed during the ceremony. 

But above all, the most difficult thing was that she had no idea what she had stepped into. Her magic had gotten stronger, sure, and sometimes she received prophetic visions or strong pulls to certain places that lead her to artifacts or magical hot spots, but to say that it was all beneficial would be a blatant lie. The years following that fateful day of reawakening had steeled her, sucked away so much of her childish joy.

Sometimes, the flashbacks weren’t her own memories. They were horrific, bloody battlefields, torture chambers, having to watch the people you love die slowly and painfully under an oppressor’s mallet, unable to move, unable to speak- but the worst, by far, was the death scene. A gigantic mangled claw slices open her chest and rips out her heart, leaving her bloodied and suffering until the brain finally cuts her nerves out and the moment passes. 

There was something truly horrific in watching your own organs tumble out of your mutilated body, the panic endorphins rushing through your head at such a high rate that for once you truly do see white and your head feels so weightless that it could just float away, only to be yanked back down for your last moments, being the only one to bear witness to your own untimely demise.

The first time she had gotten that memory, she truly thought it was the end for her, screaming out in pain, convulsing on the floor, leaving only King to bear horrific witness to the scene. He couldn’t have possibly understood what was happening, but for her sake, he stayed strong.

She could almost feel the stabbing pain in her chest every time the memory came to her. 

“Hey Luz, are you almost done? It's getting dark… and cold…” He shivered, curling up within himself.

“Yeah. Let’s head back.” Luz thought it would be a good idea to try to reconnect here, in the woods right behind their motel room. 

The peculiarity of getting a flashback from Bonesborough in Restful Pines didn’t make much sense to her, but that probably meant that the flashback had more significance.

She opened the door, letting in King and Owlbert, then closed it gently, considering it was almost midnight and she didn’t want to disturb any of her neighbors.

While her companions snuggled up in bed, she sat down at the desk and rustled through her bag, surprised to see something she was sure she had forgotten.


	6. Chapter 6

Hi again diary!

It’s kind of weird writing here… again, after everything that just happened. I escaped the coven for now, but that has left me on the run, since they took the owl house. I still don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but at least that uneasy feeling isn’t as prominent as it was.

Anyways, back to why I wanted to write in here- my vision. It was a strong one, which means it was important, but I still don’t understand it’s significance, so I think I’ll start brainstorming.

It was the bluff I fought Grom on with Amity, so I think it has something to do with nature, fighting, Grom, or… Amity. hadn't she joined the Emperor's coven..?

Honestly, as much as I’d like it to be anything else, it’s probably going to have to do with fighting. Maybe fighting Amity? God, this already sounds awful for such a seemingly peaceful prophecy.

I don’t know… maybe I should just leave this one up to fate. I was fine before I started to get visions, so this should be no different.

\- Luz


	7. Chapter 7

She smoothed out the front of her uniform in the dormitory mirror. It didn’t matter that her heart was racing, and for more than one reason. It didn’t matter that she was about to cross paths with the love of her childhood life. It didn’t matter that those feelings had never really left in the first place. Because she would not be a failure. She would succeed, and earn the Emperor’s favor.

As soon as Opal pressed the wanted poster into her hand, Amity felt her heart drop.

Of course, she hadn’t seen Luz in years, but she hadn’t expected Luz to look so…

_ Beautiful. No, no- developed- no that sounds worse-! _

She looked… ok, for being a dirty runaway human in the Boiling Aisles. Her hair was longer now; frayed, but styled suspiciously like Azura’s in book 1.

The thing that stuck out to her most, however, was her eyes. She remembered seeing them at school, bright, wide, full of joyous wonder, the color of warm hot chocolate, but now…

Maybe it was just the photo, but her eyes seemed almost empty. The tired, half-lidded stare was so foreign to her, she could hardly recognize it was the same person as jubilant Luz from freshman year.

Opal patted her back reassuringly as they left the coven dorm and exited the castle, on their way over to the griffin docks.

“You’re going to be fine. That Luz human is rumored to be pretty merciful. She doesn’t like combat, so this should be pretty easy-peasy, right?” It was staged as a rhetorical question, but Amity couldn’t help but run the scenario through her head as if it weren’t.

It  _ should _ be easy. But… was it really going to be?

It was said without regard, for Opal had no idea that they had a past together. She had no idea that this seemingly stoic, ruthless executor of the Emperor’s will was once a lovestruck teenager. One that hadn’t been able to figure out how to move on.

“Yeah.” She rolled up the poster and stuck it into her satchel. “Will you be dropping me off on the mission site?” Opal shook her head.

“Actually, I would usually, but today’s my day off. I’m visiting Emira again, so Juniper of the Silva sector is going to fly you over... Have any notes you want me to drop off for her? Condolences, letters..?”

“I’m fine. Thank you, Opal.”

“No problem kid. You’ve got this! I’ll make some extra dessert for the night you return.” She smiled weakly at the prospect, highly doubting that her return would be anything but disappointing. 

Around 30 feet away, a griffin landed, mounted by a woman with pale green skin and leafy-looking hair. She let the reins go slack in her hands, then beckoned for Amity to come over and take up the second position on the back of the saddle.

“Oh, it looks like Juniper is here. See ya soon, newbie!” Opal laughed boisterously at her own comment, then waved a farewell. She took off on her palisman, a beautiful, sparkling dragonfly she had appropriately named Glimmer, and was gone in an instant.

Amity boarded the back of the griffin, already far too aware of the awful feeling that was building in her gut.

Restful Pines seemed like an appropriate name for the small, sleepy town sprawled out in front of her. The fact that she was here on business was too bad, this place would be a nice getaway from bustling Bonesburough. 

“She’s staying in room 7 of that Inn down the way. Just talk to the owner for a key.” With that little quip, Juniper took off, leaving her virtually alone at the head of the dusty road lining the central shops of Restful Pines. 

Almost every storefront she passed seemed abandoned, only occasionally being interrupted by a dusty souvenir shop or magical item market. She peeked inside the window of one of the magic shops. An older woman clad in patterned fabrics and chains of coins and beads went about dusting off her wall of crystal balls, watching the news playing on them intently.

She picked back up her brisk walking pace, eventually stopping at the end of the lane. Birchlands Inn loomed in front of her like a grim, unspeakable darkness.

Steeling her nerves, she approached the front desk and tapped on the plexiglass. A lizard-like man appeared from the back and tipped his hat slightly when he saw who she was.

“Emperors coven, I presume?” She nodded. When she noticed his look of anticipation, she remembered why he, well, why anybody really, would call in about the runaway human.

“Your reward will be delivered once your claim is verified and we have apprehended the human.” He sighed, but nodded.

“Ok. Here’s the key, room 7.” She took it after thanking him and walked down the hallway, stopping in front of her room. Her palisman was clenched tightly in her right hand, the key in her opposite.

This felt too easy. And even if it really was as simple as popping in and slamming her into a pair of handcuffs, she doubted her ability to put up with even the most minimal of pleas from the human. 

The key fit in the lock perfectly. She slowly turned the key to the side, took in a deep breath, and kicked in the door, quickly drawing a circle in preparation to summon an abomination.

The room was empty. The only sign that somebody had even been there was the disheveled bed sheets. She almost stormed back to the clerk in a rage for wasting her time, but something caught her eye before she closed the door. A little red book on the desk, covered in cat stickers. A pencil that was whittled down to the eraser lay next to it. 

Out of curiosity, she opened it, flipping through the first few pages. Most of them were poorly drawn Azura portraits. Then, suddenly, a chunk of pages was ripped out. After that was what looked to be a personal journal, captioned ‘Quite Possibly my Final Entry’. Ominous, but intriguing. She leafed through the pages. 

She had been… stockpiling magical bile? Amity shuddered at the thought, but couldn’t even begin to fathom how powerful that made her. The only thing restricting a witch’s magic was their limited bile, and without it-

Oh, Amity was definitely screwed. A pacifist, with that kind of powerful magic? She doubted it.

Luz probably wouldn’t try to kill her, but that just about ended any chance of her being successful on this mission.

She sighed, reading the most recent entry quietly, but froze when her name suddenly came up.

A… vision? That was odd in itself, but… a vision of the Grom bluff? Her stomach twisted in recollection. The childish joy, the adolescent love, the tears that had streamed down her room that night that nobody could see because she was Amity Blight, and everybody knew that showing emotions was a sign of weakness, and she would be caught dead before giving her family the satisfaction of seeing her in that state. 

She exhaled. As much as the prospect of fighting her didn’t sit well in her head, it wasn’t like she had a choice if even the stars agreed that this was meant to happen.

She felt a cold feeling run down her spine, but before she could turn around, something intercepted her head, clanging loudly against the metal helmet. She went sprawling, tumbling backward. A foot stuck out behind her heels, causing her to trip and hit her skull again, this time against the creaky wooden floorboards. Before she could raise her hand to cast a spell, both were knocked back with some invisible force.

She opened her eyes. Standing over her, staff raised, was a wild-looking Luz Noceda, who appeared both well within her rights and willing to strike her again. With a groan, she dropped her head to the side, allowing the silken hood to slide off her head. Luz gasped. She must have recognized the pale green hair from all those years ago, though it was only noticeable in her tips now. She had refused to dye it again.

“Amity? Is that you?” 

“Mmm, yeah.” Immediately, she felt the weight raise from her arms, but she still was far too stunned to do anything. Her head buzzed faintly from the hit, which had left a pretty nasty dent in her helmet's beak.

A pair of strong arms lifted her from the ground and lay her onto the soft, bunched up comforter. She would have thought it was an abomination, if not for the prominently human-shaped hands pressed against her shoulder blades. Amity squinted. It was bright outside, but she could vaguely see Luz, donning a conflicted expression, and under her cloak, the suspiciously toned arms that had heaved her off the floor. She didn’t weigh a lot, but still, damn.

_ Focus, Amity! _ She almost smacked herself. Leave it to her to be sent on a capture mission and spend all of it incapacitated whilst daydreaming about her captor’s  _ arms _ . 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you in that uniform. You looked like a spunky plague doctor.”

“A spunky what?” Luz laughed. Her voice still rang beautifully in the air like a bell, though she sensed a touch of sadness in the way she spoke.

“It’s a human thing.” She helped Amity sit up. “So… are you actually a part of the Emperor’s coven, or is this getup just a decoration?”

“I-it’s… not a costume. I got sent here to capture you for Belos.” She took a warning step back. 

“Well, that’s not going to happen.” She raised her staff defensively. 

“It’s fine, I.. I’ve thought it over in my head, and for moral reasons, I’m not going to even try.” Yeah, sure,  _ moral reasons. _ Not the fact that Amity would most certainly get her ass handed to her in battle, or that she was still too infatuated with her, or at least the fond memories of her, that there was no way that the witch would actually be able to bring herself to take Luz down.

“Well… ok. But what are you going to do now, if this was a quest from Belos?” Amity felt her heart sink as she remembered the fate awaiting her back at the castle if she failed.

“I’m… still figuring that out. But for now, I guess I’m also a… wanted criminal.” Luz recoiled slightly.

“Well, from experience, I have to tell you, exile is really not all that great.” She tapped her chin in thought. “And… wasn’t being a part of the Emperor’s coven a part of your dream? I’m not saying I’d let you capture me, but… giving up this easily? You’ve changed, Amity.” She turned to walk out the door, but Amity launched herself off the edge of the bed in an act of desperation, grasping one of Luz’s hands tightly. Her head was still spinning.

“No, Luz, you don’t understand- that place, it’s like a cult. Everybody there is under the Emperor’s mind control. I... I don’t want to go back.” Luz looked at her with wide eyes. Then giggled, just a little bit. Right in her face. Amity felt that she might simply combust.

“Oh, I assumed you would have picked up on the whole cult thing earlier… huh. But if that’s the case, I’ll happily invite you into the official ‘wanted criminal’ and allies club.” She ran a hand through her curly hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. “Oh. We should probably get going soon, since the coven knows our location.” Unaware of what Luz was staring at, she dismissed the comment.

“How about we leave tomorrow? I’m a bit tuckered out.” Luz shook her head, then pointed out the window behind her. She was too busy ogling at her captor to realize that apparently, Belos had sent in ‘reinforcements’ despite the fact that this was supposed to be a solo mission. The edges of the town were swarming with coven guards. 

Luz grabbed her book and shoved it into her backpack, then gave Amity a sideways glance as she straddled her palisman.

“You coming?”

“I think we both know I can hardly say no.” So, reluctantly, she took up the space on the back of the rod, and jolted slightly when she felt Luz’s hands grab her own and wrap them around her stomach. She tightened her grip around the soft flesh and rested her head against the human's shoulder.

“Hold on tight. Owlbert isn’t the smoothest ride.” With that, she kicked off the ground and they were gone, flying high above the tree canopy into more unknown land.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn amity, you have feelings? w e a k


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pain.  
> also, Emira with an Irish accent. that is all.

Chucking pebbles at your girlfriend’s second story bedroom window didn’t seem like a normal thing for one to be doing, right?

Whoever decided that had definitely not met Mr. and Mrs. Blight, two of the most horrifically viscous and sharp people she ever had the misfortune of talking to. How Emira was their daughter, she had no idea.

Finally, Emira opened her window, sticking her head out inquisitively.

“Oh. Hey there, dorkus.” Emira summoned her own pebble and flung it back, lightly striking Opal on the head.

“Can you let me in?” She shouted, cupping her hands to make sure Emira heard her. She did a ‘shush’ motion with her finger, then giggled a little.

“Not with that stupid uniform on.”   
“Come on, I just got off work!”   
“Then I guess I’ll be closing this window then~” Emira stated smugly. Halfway through it closing, Opal admitted defeat.

“Fine. Give me a second.” She threw off her helmet and poncho, kicked off her boots onto the lawn and tossed her belt aside.

“Happy?” She threw out her arms, exasperated. Emira just smirked.

“You still have part of the uniform on, silly!”

“Emira, I love you, but I will not strip on your front lawn.”

“Would you in the backyard..?”

“Emira!” She sighed with faux exasperation, lazily drawing a circle to levitate her into the house. Opal landed softly on her carpeted floor.

“You’re no fun.”

Every time she came to visit, Opal felt like the entire room had flipped its layout again. This time, her walls were a soft green, and new fashion posters were stapled up all over the place. It looked like she was designing a new dress pattern in the corner, with her mannequin half darted up each side and some shimmery emerald fabric draped over the top.

“Good to see you too.” She rolled her eyes, leaning against her dresser. “How’ve things been back in our good ol town?”   
“Uninteresting.” She eyed her disheveled uniform. “I hope you don’t plan on staying in that gross... thing.” 

“You sure don’t waste time, Emira.” Despite her little remark, Opal shimmied out of the shirt, throwing it carelessly on the ground. She was usually a bit self-conscious about her body, but the way Emira looked at her always made her forget, feel beautiful even if her brain thought otherwise.

“Damn…” Emira stared at her toned chest. With all of her boot camp training she did to become the leader of the Amphora sector, she supposed her build had definitely become more muscular. “Well, I’m a little bit glad that I’m the only one who gets to see this… that dorky costume is very concealing.” She surged forward and pressed her and Opal’s lips together, winding her hands around her waist. She ran a hand through Emira’s hair with a sigh. Every time, no matter how tense or… shitty she felt, Emira could always help her unwind. She practically melted under those deft hands of hers.

Emira gave her waist a little squeeze, pulling away breathlessly. “I have to admit, I’m a little inspired… how would you feel about, hm, a red crop… with a plaid skirt-”   
“I’m sure I’ll love anything you design for me, darling.” Emira’s face turned bright red.    
“Ugh… you and your lovey dovey comments always ruin the mood.” She was putting up an angry facade, but deep down Opal could tell she was just messing around. 

With a dramatic sigh, she nestled her head in Emira’s fluffy hair. It was crazy- five years of being with the most beautiful, wonderful witch in all of the boiling aisles. It hadn’t felt like that long. Only months ago it felt like they were back in high school, messing with the teachers, hexing toilets, stealing from Principal Bump’s confiscation chest… good times. And now they were adults, finally blooming into their true selves. Emira, pursuing her fashion career, and Opal… well, she was leading a coven sector, but to claim she wanted to spend the rest of her life there would be a lie. The truth was… she didn’t know how to be independent like Emira. She worked best under the influence and instruction of others. And, well… she was fairly sure that Emira thought about it differently. She pressed her face into the taller girl’s chest, rubbing small circles over her forearm with one hand.

“Can you stay over tonight?”

“I’d love to, but I have to be back by 10 pm tonight. They’re extremely strict about curfew.”

“I thought this was your last week? Things like that don’t really matter since you’re leaving anyways.” She planted a kiss on Opal’s exposed shoulder.

“About that…” Emira froze. Her warm embrace dropped as she took a precautionary step back, with a saddened, confused look on her face. “I- I’m not leaving my job. They just promoted me, and it’s a much safer and higher paying job, we’ll be able to move in togeth-”   
“What… what the hell are you talking about, Opal… We’ve discussed this! You know exactly how I feel about the Emperor, the filthy pig- we- you can’t possibly continue to  _ willingly  _ support that?” Desperation grew in Emira’s eyes, followed by heartbreak. “You- you’re joking, right?  _ I  _ curate wild magic! I’m on one of those hitlists, Opal-” She looked away in shame.    
“Emira, please, trust me, if I get in good with the emperor, I’m sure we can work something out.” That earned no response. Emira stared dejectedly at the rug, a tragic shade of blue. 

“You’re… you’ve put your career before my own safety..?” A single tear streamed down her cheek. Opal felt her stomach twist in agony. She knew Emira wouldn’t handle it well, but with the direction the conversation was going, she feared-

“We’re done, Opal.” Her... worst fear. Inside her chest, she felt her heart shatter, but her brain refused to accept what she had just heard. Her chest was heart-wrenchingly numb.

“...What?” Her voice cracked. Emira turned away, choking out a sob.

“You heard me! We’re done! I can’t be with someone who keeps overlooking my safety so blatantly!” Emira yelled this time, wiping away her tears with the woolen sleeves of her sweater. “Please… just go. You’re making this harder than it has to be.”

“Emira, please-”

“GET OUT!” She cast a circle around Opal’s chest, forcefully lifting her up and throwing her out the window. Despite the considerable force and anger packed into the spell, she hit the ground softly, not even scratching her knee. 

The sun was setting over the forest, beams of light bending and getting snagged away by reaching thorny branches. Her shirt fluttered down and landed next to her in a heap.

Tears streamed down her face, but she refused to acknowledge them. Instead, she steeled herself and put the helmet back on, allowing her emotions to be swayed by her lord’s fantastical power, because as every good witch knows; relationships are a liability.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahaha well thats cool now it's time for some vimera


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i stg ive got to stop updating so frequently cuz i cant write at this pace forever but all of ur sweet comments give me so much motivation, i cant help it 🥺

Somehow, finding out the result of the prophecy was Amity joining her just made it harder for her to concentrate on the next. Just… with the context, it didn’t make sense. And with one new pair of eyes boring holes through her head, she found her mind wandering, wondering why Amity was staring at her in the first place.

The possibility that it wasn’t Amity hadn’t slipped past her yet, either, so it was entirely possible that the vision hadn’t been fulfilled.

She sighed, trying again to push through to the other side. The circumstances weren’t exactly fantastic for concentration, being stranded in the middle of the woods with a temperamental raccoon and her old childhood friend dressed as a musically inclined 14th-century plague doctor, but it didn’t stop her from trying.

She opened an eye, staring at Amity oddly. The witch immediately averted her gaze. It looked like she was tying pieces of grass together to entertain herself.

“Hey, I know it’s only curiosity, but please stop staring. I can’t focus.” Her cheeks turned pink.

“What are you doing, anyway? Shouldn’t we get going in case the coven decides to scour the forest?”

“Well, I’m trying to reconnect with the ancients to give me a prophecy as to what the coven’s next move is, but I can’t do that if you keep bugging me.” For a moment after that, everything fell silent. She felt the connection getting stronger, almost there-

“The ancients..? What are those?” Luz slammed down her fist fiercely.

“I almost… nevermind. I’m done for a while.” She unfurled her hands, then stood and brushed off her tunic before preparing her infusion glove, tapping some of the green liquid into the capsule and snapping it shut. Amity watched in awe as she drew a circle in the dirt, at first just bubbling, but then summoning a platter of sandwiches and a few glasses of water. 

“You can eat, Amity. I didn’t summon these just to look at them.” She nodded, reaching out and grabbing one of the ham and cheese ones on top.

They ate in silence. King gnawed on a chicken club, but kept on shooting glances between them as if a conversation were supposed to be happening.

The sun began to dip lower in the sky. She finished her sandwich and stood up. 

“I’m going out to get firewood.” Amity leaped to her feet eagerly.

“I’ll come with you!” She flushed. “Uh, I mean, I can help… haha…” Luz raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.

“Fine. King, you can just take a nap. We’ll be back in 15 minutes.”

“I still don’t know what this human ‘minute’ thing that you keep mentioning is, but ok.” He curled up into a little ball by the now empty tray, while Luz and Amity marched off into the darkening forest. They marched along for a suspiciously long time, not pausing to pick up any wood, until finally, Luz came to an abrupt stop, pointing her finger directly at Amity’s face. She stuck up her hands defensively.

“Look, I don’t know what you want from me now, if you’re even who you say you are, but just… spit it out already, it’s painfully obvious there’s something you want.” The bitter feelings of sadness and anger swelled back to her, reminding her exactly what Amity had done after her exile, only to come along four years later and act as if nothing happened. The words stung coming out, but she knew that the witch deserved each harsh syllable.

She just looked back, eyes wide in shock, and maybe something else, something softer…

“Oh, come on. I know you, Amity Blight. You would sooner combust your foot than _volunteer_ to go pick up firewood. What is it?”

She stood in shock for a few moments, but eventually finally responded.

“I- I’m not a clone, if that’s what you’re concerned about, but I think… I must be forgetting something. You’re mad at me.”

“Of course I’m mad! Did you honestly expect me to forget what you did after I got expelled?” A look of realization spread across her face.

“O-oh…” Luz’s mouth turned up into a sneer.

“Oh. I see how it is. You don’t feel bad, do you? You’re only feeling bad because I called you out.” She dropped her hand. “You might as well leave now. I’m not taking you any further.”

“I… wait, Luz-” She started to walk away. Amity grabbed her shoulder, and oddly, she didn’t feel the urge to throw it off. “I’m sorry. My parents made me cut ties with you after your exile. If I disobeyed them…” She shuddered, remembering the awful consequences of disobedience. “I- I know it’s just an excuse and what I did was wrong, but I truly am sorry, Luz.” It was the human’s turn to be frozen in shock. She hadn’t expected Amity to actually… apologize at all. The bitterness forming on the end of her tongue melted away into something kinder, almost sweetly affectionate.

“You’re not off the hook just yet… but I forgive you, Amity.” She looked up, noting the darkening sky. “Shit! Let’s hurry up and gather some wood.” Hurriedly, they each respectively bunched up an armful of wood and began their trek back to the campsite. If they were sitting significantly closer to each other, nobody cared enough to say anything.

Eager to get the fire going, Luz placed a fire glyph underneath the stack, and with a gentle tap, the stick pile erupted in golden flame. It instantly warmed their outstretched fingertips. 

Soon, stars completely filled the navy sky, accompanied only by the gleaming moon.

“Oh, Amity, you wouldn’t happen to have a sleeping bag, would you?” She smacked her forehead.

“Crap, that’s what I forgot- But it’s fine! I can just sleep on the ground.” She was visibly shivering. Like _the_ Amity Blight would be content with sleeping on the ground.  
“I really hope you don’t think I’m dumb. I can just summon you something to sleep on.” Luz yawned and pulled on her glove, preparing to summon her some sleeping gear.

After accidentally calling forth a dish towel, four plastic cups, and a singular bed sheet, she admitted defeat. 

“I’m sorry, I think that I’m too distracted to summon right now. I can just unzip my sleeping bag, and… we can use it as a blanket, on top of the bedsheet.” Luz nodded proudly, whilst Amity’s face flushed for approximately the eighth time that night. However, negotiating with her wasn’t too difficult, and in a matter of time, everybody was finally in bed, ready to sleep. 

As she watched the last embers of the fire extinguish the landscape into pure, inky black whilst snuggled under the sleeping bag turned makeshift blanket, Luz pondered why her cheeks felt warm when Amity sleepily rolled over and snuggled herself against her back. It was probably just… an affinity for friendly affection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let luz say fuck. please.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra long chapter cuz yall deserved it

“Hey. You never answered my question, about those ancients.” The group had been lucky enough to stumble across a wide, flowery field, where Luz had decided she would train for the day. She was creating a centrifugal force around herself, trying her best to keep each orbiting ball of flame steady. Eager to take a break, Luz took the question as personal permission to take a break. She nullified the spell and sat next to Amity below her tree. Hundreds of purple buds the size of grapefruits scattered the branches. 

“I suppose I didn’t. What did you ask, again?”

“Well, what are they? These ancients, I mean. And how are you in contact with them?” Luz pondered the question herself. What  _ were _ the ancients, outside of being a cover name for whatever mystical force that was guiding her? It was another reason she really wished there were some

“I don’t actually know much about them. What I  _ do _ know is that I’m being led by an ancient celestial… something- that I was connected to during my seance to restore my bond with the dark arts of ancient witches.”

“And… what’s that like?” Amity asked as she lay back in the soft grass, fiddling with the stem of some white, bell-shaped flowers.

“I think I already mentioned the prophecies, but there are also, how do I describe this… directional pulls that lead me to certain important places or things, and flashbacks to the past.”

“The past?”

“Not my past. I don’t know whose memories they are, but they definitely aren’t mine.”

“Well, that’s certainly… weird.” Luz nodded solemnly. A kind breeze swept across the meadow, rippling through the grass and making the tips sway in patterns resembling those of gentle swells in the vast, open seas.

Suddenly, a pale silhouette bounded out of the grass, tackling Luz’s chest. She was almost frightened but immediately was overcome with joy when she noticed what it was, an albino fox, enthusiastically licking her cheek. She carefully picked the little beast up, noticing a palisman lock on its hind right paw.

“This one yours, Amity?” She glanced up from the flower crown she was weaving.

“Oh, yeah. That’s Malin Gael. I hope he wasn’t causing you any trouble.” 

“Not at all. And Malin Gael, as in the mysterious soothsayer in Azura book 5?” The witch nodded, then made a little chirping sound with her teeth. Malin Gael twisted in her arms, quickly bounding over to his owner and nuzzling into her hair. She had let it down from her high ponytail. The light brown locks framed her face nicely, glinting in the sunlight every time she cocked her head at Malin, who was leaping around playfully as if preparing to pounce on her.

“It’s been so long since I’ve read an Azura book. I never got to see the end of the series… it's a little sad.” 

“If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t gotten to see any more than you. My supply actually came directly from Eda’s human shop, and without her, or the portal…” They fell into a moment of stillness as they recalled the early days, when everything was easier, when their most pressing concerns had to do with passing math exams and not being literally murdered by an expanding politically powerful cult.

“Wait, how did you know about the portal?”

“I was Lilith’s protégé, remember? She can’t keep a secret for the life of her. I’m pretty sure keeping that whole curse thing under raps took everything out of her.” Luz giggled at the remark, letting the conversation drop as she admired the scenery. However, it seemed like her other travel partner had different plans.

“Human! I require snacks and belly rubs!” King, decidedly done with being excluded from the conversation, sat directly in front of her view of Amity by laying in the grass with his arms crossed. She rolled her eyes but invited him to sit beside her, handing over a piece of jerky. 

They really were fortunate to have stumbled upon this little outcropping. It was a beautiful day, and the lush, sweeping grasses, bright flowers, and shady trees made it all the nicer.

She couldn’t have possibly been able to know that the odd, cold feeling that had been building in her breast was going to ruin it all. Her vision flashed white and she doubled over, hacking violently. The metallic taste of gore permeated her senses, lingering painfully on her tongue. She wiped the blood from her chin. 

“Holy shit, Luz- Luz!” A pair of hands gripped her shoulders as a final shiver ran through her body, forcing her to heave out last night’s dinner. “Luz! What’s going on?” Amity sounded incredibly panicked, but her head felt too numb to process any of it.

An invisible force yanked her chest forward a few feet, and she understood what was going on.

“Help me walk.” Immediately, there was a supporting arm around her chest. She stumbled forward a few feet, leaning into Amity to keep her upright.

They floundered through the forest like the haphazard three-legged race rejects that they were. Amity summoned an abomination to clear obstacles in her path, nervously making it smash even the smallest branches that might have snagged her leg. Why she didn’t just have the abomination carry Luz instead… it was anybody’s guess.

Finally, the tug in her chest subsided, right as they came back upon the previous night’s campsite.

Luz might have chalked the spirits up to be completely mad right then and there, if not for the massive and distinctly birdlike footprint over the previous night’s campfire pit. 

Luz held onto a nearby tree and coughed up the remainder of the blood stuck in her throat. Gradually, feeling returned to her knees, and she carefully walked over to examine the print. It was at least the size of a frisbee. She had a fairly good idea of who it could belong to, judging by the metallic key planted in the dirt only a few feet away.

Keenly, she pressed the eye, watching the matching plaque appear in front of her. It still had some ash on the edges from where the door burned.

“Is that..?” Her keen silence seemed to wordlessly answer Amity’s question.

“I never thought I’d put faith in the old bat again, but… it was certainly no normal beast that made these tracks.” 

“I’m all for following them, but I really think you need to rest first. Less than 5 minutes ago, you were vomiting blood.” Luz brushed the comment off. 

“That happens sometimes. I feel fine now.” She most definitely did not feel fine, and never before had the feelings made her puke up blood, but she wasn’t about to put the concerns of her personal health on Amity’s Shoulders. Plus, that peculiar sense of faith had been restored somewhere within her, and she feared the risk of losing it again. 

So, she found herself carefully traversing the worn run through the forest. Her wide footprints and feathers littered the path, making it hard to lose.

For what felt like forever, they walked and walked and walked, quiet for worry of startling the wildlife, persistent for the worry of losing her trail.

Finally, however, they came upon a means to an end; the gaping maw of a cave. It was obvious that she had gone in that way.

“Amity, can you cast a light spell? I left my gear in the meadow.” She nodded quickly, summoning a ring of light as they entered the cave together.

Right off the bat, her senses were blasted with the flagrant scent of death. Every few steps, things crunched under her feet. She didn’t have a weak stomach, but for fear of more blood coming up, she averted her vision.

The weird feeling began festering around her heart again. As they came upon a stray rock, Luz sat herself down and clutched her stomach. 

“Haah… the spirits are really active today…” She heard Amity yelling her name, but it sounded like almost nothing over the white noise. Her body contorted painfully. Every tendon felt on the verge of snapping. Tension built up in her bones, but thankfully, soon, everything abruptly snapped back into place. 

She exhaled, knees hitting the ground with a thud.    
The floor was white. The walls were white. She was in her own head again.

She couldn’t figure out how she even brought herself here, considering she was far from a state of concentration, but the rising shadow before her gave her an idea.

“Rise, my child.” A massive, red palm wrapped around her torso, picking her up off the ground like a piece of lint on a woolen coat.

The figure before her was immeasurably massive. She was as tall as one of his many eyes were wide. 

“Who are you?” She was too terrified to move. 

“I am Bane, the Titan of the Boiling Aisles.” Luz gasped. The wicked, dark fingernails, the scarred chest, specifically, the one that ran all the way from his upper chest to his stomach-

“I was reliving you-  _ I  _ was reliving the Titan’s memories?” He nodded. It looked painful, having to hold up such a huge head. She couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to stand up from a tumble in a body like that.

“It’s not hard.”

“Wait, you can hear that?” 

“I have no physical body anymore, child. My mind is coexisting with yours.” His voice was so deep that she felt it resonate within herself.

“O-oh.” He inhaled deeply through her nose.

“You are human.” 

“Yes. Yes, I am.” She stated it proudly. Judging by the look he was shooting her, it wasn’t a good thing.

“This curse will kill you.” 

“Curse?” 

“The Titan’s curse that you enacted upon yourself. It is meant to gradually shut down a witch’s magical powers, their liver. You have no magical ability. It will destroy your heart instead.” Luz clutched at her chest. The intense squeeze of the curse felt tighter each second. “I am not sure how you are still alive.”

“Is there a way to lift the curse-?”

“There is… one way. You must kill me.” 

“What? I can’t do that.” He closed his eyes, all 9 of them, and sighed.

“I need you to. Surely you must know of Belos, correct? That heart, it is not his. It is mine, and every day he draws power from me, to keep the enchantments upon his castle.”

“You want me to- to destroy the heart?” He nodded, and a weak smile spread across his lips.

“Precisely. And if it’s any more incentive to do so, once I am gone, Belos has no power.” Reluctantly, she agreed.

“How much longer can I go, until this thing kills me?”

“I cannot say. But If you truly believe you can accomplish this, I will try my best to hold off the curse until you cross into Belos’s throne room. After, I must leave to make sure that he cannot stop you, because he will if he sees you. And he sees everything that happens in his castle, and everything through his followers' eyes, so you must tread lightly.”

“I understand.” With a final sigh, as if it were his last breath, his figure dissolved into a storm of golden dust. As she landed, however, she saw that the golden mass was not powder, but thousands of shimmering butterflies. They swarmed around her, absorbing themselves into her torso. The cold grip of the curse was replaced with a warm feeling, and she knew then that her heart was no longer dying but instead warmed by the hearth of fellowship.

Her eyes snapped back open, only to find that staring down at her were two pairs of yellow eyes, squinted in concern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways PJO kids wya?


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lol epic reupload bcuz i messed up the intro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways yall aint READY for my boscha and willow encounter chapter

When Luz collapsed, Amity felt panic build in her throat.

When she saw a giant feathery beast approaching from the depths of the cave, said panic escaped her mouth in the form of a scream. She cowered away, shining her light spell in the direction of the monster as if it would somehow fend it off. A loud hiss of pain resonated through the cave, followed by… coughing?

The witch turned back to face the creature. Its giant black eyes had shrunk down, now ringed with yellow irises. She stepped a bit closer, and-

“Eda? Is that you?” She coughed up a feather.

“I- I think so…” She looked to her clawed feet, clearly disoriented. Amity exhaled through her mouth.

“Ok. Good.” This discovery certainly was something, but she had more pressing matters at hand to deal with, like the issue that was her friend violently twitching on the bone-littered cave floor. Once the thrashing finally stopped, she hefted the human into her arms and set her down outside, where each deep breath didn’t sting because of the putrid fragrance of rotting flesh. This whole situation was scaring the shit out of her, but she knew that the best way to deal with a bad situation was to stay calm. She inhaled deeply, giving Luz’s limp palm a light squeeze.

Once out in daylight, she examined the owl lady further, waiting for the human to come to.

It was definitely Eda, but to say she was clearly recognizable would be a lie. Her pale gray feathers were stained brown with dirt and strewn with twigs and leaves, and it seemed that she might have gotten into a few fights in her beast form- a long scar ran across the left side of her face. It looked like the original wound was extremely painful, judging by the jagged nature of how the flesh had healed.

Luz’s position hadn’t changed since Amity set her down. The witch propped her body back up against a nearby boulder, in hopes that maybe fresh air would get through her system and flush out whatever was causing the problem. Eda paced about nearby, muttering to herself. She didn’t know much about cursed states, but if she hadn’t been conscious of her actions up until that moment- she could understand if it was a lot to handle.

Luz’s hand was growing cold in her own, and with every passing second, she grew more concerned. The pulse beneath her thumb was slow- too slow, and so incredibly faint…

The pulse stopped, and Amity felt something drop in the pit of her stomach, a pill of pure fervent panic. She reached up, shaking, feeling for a pulse on her neck, only to come back with nothing.    
“Eda…” She murmured weakly. The beast floundered over, immediately sensing that something was wrong when she didn’t feel the warmth of life coming off of Luz’s body.

“Oh no, kid…” Eda nudged her shoulder with a claw. It just flopped back to its original position when she moved.

“I…” The numbness that always grew in her face before she started crying began to spread, but her shock outruled her grief, watching her childhood friend lie cold and dead on a patch of wilted grass.

Yet, some festoon of hope still decorated her heart, which kept her hand wrapped firmly around Luz’s, even if every passing moment it felt more and more like she was foolishly holding a piece of meat like a lifeline.

But then, like a miracle, it happened. The warm aura of life returned as blood began circulating through her system again. She felt heat bloom under her fingertips, the pulse returning strongly, and then, when things couldn’t possibly be better, the urge to cry returned tenfold. 

The human’s eyes fluttered open, focusing oddly on her and Eda staring down on her. She sat up and raised an eyebrow to Amity’s concerned expression, rubbing her head like it hurt.   
“Ugh… what’d I miss? You guys are looking at me like I died or something, jeez.” With that remark, the floodgates broke loose. She tugged Luz into a bear hug, crying softly into her cowl. 

She was a bit confused as to why Amity was upset, but Luz hugged her back anyways, rubbing circles into her back in an attempt to soothe the sorrowful witch.

* * *

“Titan, I was beginning to think you forgot us all here.” King scowled at the group, surrounded by a similarly disappointed looking Owlbert and a significantly distracted looking Malin Gael, who was too infatuated with Amity’s helmet that she had left behind to notice their arrival. King’s expression dropped from angry to shocked in a matter of seconds, however, when he caught sight of the beast emerging from the woods.

“Eda!” He ran over to her, tackling one of her front claws. She lay down in the grass and nuzzled King peacefully. Owlbert, not one to be forgotten, flew over and snuggled himself underneath the owl lady’s chin. Luz smiled sadly and moved to join the mass as well. 

She had failed to see the human look so happy ever since they were in school together when she had just begun learning magic. This owl lady really made an impact on her life- she was happy for them, but really couldn’t claim that it didn’t sadden her, reminding Amity of all the affection her parents never gave her.

After all, there was a reason she grew up touch starved. There was a reason she flinched when people got too close to her or touched her without warning. Her mom never saw Amity as her child; she was a trophy, and a stain on the family name for being born with features unlike those of her siblings, looks considered ‘less than perfect’ and therefore unacceptable. In short, someone unworthy of her time, even more unworthy of her affections for taking longer to develop powerful magic. 

At least then, she knew that the feeling was mutual. Her life would be perfect, only if she never had to see that poor excuse of a mother she had ever again.

Luz finally released Eda from her loving embrace, instead opting to sit next to her and explain her magic gear. Not wanting to ruin the moment, Amity settled back down in her own plot of grass. Malin curled up beside her after he was done fixating on her dented helmet.

She wasn’t listening to what Luz was saying, but kept on getting reminded of how her laugh was like the ringing of a bell, and how she could fall asleep to the silvery, singsong tone of her voice when she talked about things she loved, like her magical advancements, Azura, writing fanfiction… 

Oh, the things she would do just for a chance to get on that list.

Eda sat contently listening to Luz’s magic rant. She hadn’t been talking much the entire time, which was understandable, since she should have been in that owl beast state for nearly 5 years- if Amity had gone 5 years without speaking or thinking in her native tongue, she doubted that she would exactly be considered fluent anymore either. Above all though, she could see plainly in the way she looked at the human just how much she cared for her. The gaze of maternal love wasn’t one she was used to, but it was easy to recognize. It was the look each of Willow’s dads gave their daughter in the family photos Amity had seen hung around the house, how they saw each other in real life.

Luz tucked a long, stray strand of hair behind her ear, then leaped up with a smile. She drew a circle with her gloved hand and punched through, but yelped in surprise when it summoned a massive ball of blue flame, opposed to whatever spell she was trying to cast.

“Gah! It won’t go away!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think after im done writing this i should share my initial storyboard just for the chaos of it yk


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nobody:  
> me: HAIR SYMBOLISIM !!1!1! THIS IS A STRONG MESSAGE

She tried to shake the flame from her glove to no avail. It didn’t feel hot to her, but judging by the way Eda was backing away, others did. 

Somewhere, in the back of her head, a familiar voice chimed in. 

_ It’s soul fire, child. Use it to defeat the emperor after I am gone. _

Are you a part of my brain now?

_ I live in your subconscious. That flame is a gift. Do not abuse its power. _

Alright, Bane. How do I stop using this gift?

_ Pull your fist back sharply.  _ She went through the motions, relieved to see that it worked.

_ Don’t let that small demon eat those berries. They are poisonous. Farewell, child. _

She spun around, and sure enough, King was collecting handfuls of dark berries from a bush nearby.

“Hey, King, those are toxic.” He abruptly dropped the fruits.

“I… had a feeling.” He aggressively wiped his paws off on Eda’s wing. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Anyways- I think it’s time we had a discussion of sorts, about how we’re going to get back to the castle.” She sat down beside Amity, crossing her legs.   
“Why would we go back to the castle?” The witch said anxiously. The helmet in her lap seemed to almost glower in anger. She set it aside.

“Oh- that’s right, I never explained… so, basically, when I did that seance all those years ago, I accidentally cursed myself, and unless I go to the castle and kill that giant beating heart, it’s going to kill me.” They all collectively froze.

“Kill you? How soon?” 

“Well… I think I was supposed to die a while ago, but the titan said he would protect me from the curse until we arrive at Belos’s castle. Though, I don’t think pushing the time limit on this is a good idea.” 

“The titan? He spoke to you?”

“Yeah, apparently he’s living in my head now or something… very ominous.”

Amity nodded, swallowing dryly. She looked like she wanted to say something but kept her silence, instead opting to idly rub the inside of her wrist.

“The other thing I think we should address is Eda’s cursed state. I think we can kidnap Lilith and force her to transform Eda back if we’re back in the castle after defeating Belos.”

“How would we even do that, though? His castle is incredibly well guarded. We can’t just waltz in and go straight to his throne room and attack him!” 

“That’s actually where you come in, Amity.” Luz knocked on the hollow silver beak laying in the grass between them. “As far as Belos knows, you’re just taking extra long on your mission. Take me as your prisoner, and sneak me my gear while I'm in jail, so that a few days later, I can bust out and catch them off guard.”

“Luz, that’s an incredibly risky plan. What if he decides to petrify you upon capture?” Subconsciously, Luz found the witch’s hand in the grass and linked their pinkies. Her cheeks flushed rosy at the movement.   
“I guess I’ll have to take that risk. But with this nifty new soul fire trick, I don’t think it’ll be hard to duck whatever Belos throws at me.” With her free hand, she demonstrated how she could quickly summon the flame, without help from her magical tools. The power of the titan flowed through her like a drug, and Luz couldn’t have been happier about it.

“I… suppose you have a point. And there are always opportunities to refine the plan.” She yawned. 

“If we’re heading back towards Bonesborough, can we at least stay in a hotel tonight? My back hurts from sleeping on the ground… I don’t want to show up tired if things get messy.” Luz pondered the idea, arching her torso a little as she stretched. She wasn’t feeling great, which could be a side effect of all the possession that had been going on in her body, but she had a feeling it also had something to do with her lack of a good sleeping environment.

“Sounds good to me.” The sky was beginning to light up with the traditional pinks and rusts of sunset. “Let’s get going over to the nearest town. Eda, can you fly?” She nodded.

In a few minutes, they were off, flying over the tangled forest which began to thin as they finally spotted a village. It was a dainty thing, built around a rocky river outcropping overtaken by ivy. They landed outside of the hotel, then cringed at the prominent sign hanging on the door. 

‘NO PETS’. 

Usually, something like that would be a dealbreaker, but it was late and the exhaustion of the day was really beginning to weigh on Luz. She sighed, turning to Eda and King.    
“Will you guys be fine spending the night out here with Malin Gael and Owlbert?”   
“I’ve got this, kid. Go rest up, I’ll be here in the morning.” She walked away with the group, checking along the riverbed for a good cave. She wedged herself underneath the little rocky shelter she discovered and invited the rest of their largely animalistic crew under her wing.

“Wait. Before we check in.” Amity pulled off her cape and helmet. “Put these on. We can’t have you recognized if we don’t want reinforcements to be sent.” Luz complied, wrestling to fit her mass of frizzy hair beneath the beak, eventually getting it to abide. 

Rent was far more expensive here. It was 60 snails for just one night, and really, the room wasn’t all that. A full sized bed was pushed into the corner, with a crystal ball on the coffee table in the center of the room, along with a seperate bathroom. A bathroom! She tossed Amity's uniform aside.   
“Oh my goodness! Hot water and soap, how I’ve missed you~” She bounded into the room, locking the thin door behind her. “I’m just going to take a shower real quick.” She shouted, quickly stripping herself of her grimy clothes, matted with dirt, sweat, pond water, feathers… they were utterly rank. She really hoped Amity didn’t think she was gross because of them.

Studiously, she stopped up the sink and filled it with piping water, then dumped her clothes in, along with several generous pumps of soap. It wasn’t nearly as effective as washing them with detergent, but hopefully, it would get most of the surface level filth off. 

She almost didn’t recognize herself in the mirror. Her dirt-streaked face, wild eyes, unwashed, unruly hair, grimy body- they were all so unfamiliar to her.

It wasn’t something she wanted to be able to identify with. She turned on the shower and began on the arduous task of scrubbing 2 weeks worth of dirt off of herself.

If Luz were to think of what she missed most about her old life, besides her mama, it would have been access to a good hairdresser. She didn’t know who did all the haircutting around here, but she had never managed to find a single place that did it. That luck had therefore left her with a massive curly mane which she did not want, nor know how to take care of. Her finger got stuck as she combed a hand through while trying to wash the buildup out of her hair. When her hair was short, it never did that.

The idea formed in her head as she stepped out of the foggy glass vessel, dripping onto the cold tile flooring. The sink water had turned brown. She drained it, then filled it with more hot water. They wouldn’t be done any time soon.

Fortunately, as she opened the towel closet, she noticed two complimentary robes hanging on the back of the door. It was slightly itchy, but it worked fine, wicking away the moisture left on her chest and shoulders. She towel-dried her hair, thinking of how nice it would feel to have the weight alleviated from her head. An under shave, maybe coupled with some layers on top would be good… 

Clicking open the lock, she walked out, quickly rummaging through her bag for her infusion glove. Amity watched keenly as she summoned an electric razor and some scissors, taking them back into the bathroom. The witch followed out of curiosity, and walked in to find the human seated in front of the mirror. An inquisitive expression hung on her face.   
“Could you cut my hair, Amity?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bro are we about to kiss rn...


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god this took so long to write. enjoy <3

She stared at the helmet resting beside her on the bed. There was something about it, something cold and unnatural, that she felt differentiated it from a normal one. The cold feeling of eyes on the back of her neck sent a shudder down her spine.

She took it and placed it on a table across the room. It felt like the coldness wasn’t as intense when it was a good 10 feet away from her. 

Allowing her mind to drift from the gear, she was brought back to the present as the sound of the shower shutting off. Luz had immediately hopped into the shower upon arrival, and for good reason. She loved the human, but her scent had begun to reach an unbearably bad state.

Not that the cost of living in the forest for several weeks hadn’t affected her either. Her long hair had grown grimy, oily, and her own nails were caked in dirt. The black polish was flaking off in multiple spots.

She gasped lightly as the bathroom door was flung open. Luz walked out, clad only in a bathrobe that came to a stop just below her knees, hair wound up in a towel. She shot Amity a look, which immediately made her stomach twist uncomfortably. 

To her, the feelings of a crush felt like symptoms of a terminal disease; persistent, uncomfortable, making it hard to think straight. Not that she was a master at being straight, but with every passing day, it felt like it became harder and harder to laugh along when Luz called them friends- especially with the constant affections the human was showing towards her. Touching her cheek, combing her hair, linking their fingers in the grass like newlyweds- it was all too much, especially since she knew that Luz had never seen her as anything more than a friend.

She gathered a few things off the ground and went back into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. The intrigue drew her in, and like a wordless exchange, it was clear Luz had planned for it to do so. She looked at the witch, then allowed her hair to tumble down her back. The curls nearly reached her shoulder blades. She didn’t know that her hair had gotten that long- it had always been tucked into a bun against the base of her head. 

“Could you cut my hair, Amity?” She chewed the inside of her cheek. “I don’t want to be easily recognizable for the rest of our trip.”

“I- um… of course, Luz.” She scanned the countertop, picking up the first thing to catch her eye- a long, smooth object she couldn’t describe, with pointy edges on one side. There was a button in the center. She pressed it out of curiosity and abruptly dropped it with a yelp of fear when it began to violently vibrate. “Why would you summon a possessed object to cut your hair with- ah!” It buzzed on the tile, moving about a little. Amity gave it a wide girth, preparing to cast it into oblivion, but Luz interrupted her with a laugh before she could finish. She bent over, picking it up at the center and pressing the button again. The shaking immediately stopped. She set it back on the counter.

“It’s an electric razor, from the human world. The buzzing is normal! You use it to… you know, shave hair off, or cut big chunks.” Amity let out a breath, as to allow herself to relax. The threat… wasn’t real. Of course. She found herself muttering assurances under her breath, approaching the countertop once more to wash the grime from her hands, in the sink that wasn’t full of what appeared to be Luz’s laundry.

“Alright… I can do this, I can do this.” Braving her fear of the thi- the… electric razor, she lifted it up, turning it on then back off with a click. “Did you have any particular look in mind-? Though I should tell you, I don’t have much experience with this kind of stuff.” Luz shook her head.

“It doesn’t matter to me. just make it short. The creative liberty is in your hands.” 

“Ok.” Nervously, she wrapped her hand around the drying end of her hair, flicking the device on and making a decisive cut through the bunch. The brown locks fluttered to the floor. 

There was some indescribable intimacy to the whole ordeal. The trust one must have in another to hold a point so vulnerable, especially when that other was their enemy less than a month prior, had to be immense, and honestly, Amity wasn’t entirely sure what she had done to deserve it. The head alone proves to be one of the most attack susceptible places on the body; throat, eyes, nose, ears, teeth, hair, if one has it- and there Luz was, leaving herself completely unprotected.

As she parted the human’s hair over to begin shaving, the back of her hand brushed her cheek. Luz shivered at the touch, and Amity tried to ignore the way her heart fluttered, concerned that the razor would go off course.

She spent the remainder of the time trying her best to not completely botch the deceptively easy seeming look. 

“Pass me the scissors?”

“Yeah.” The tool rested comfortably in her palm as she tried her best to feather the longer strands. It wasn’t her first time doing that, at least- she had done a lot of… experimenting with her hair at 16, including layering it at home, though it wasn’t the best look on her.

She allowed the final strands of hair to fall to the tiles and stepped back. Luz ruffled the new look, something akin to a wide set mohawk, to shake out any residual bits of fuzz out. 

“Wow…” She turned in the mirror, looking at it from a side angle. 

“Oh no, is it bad-? I’m sorry.” 

“No, I love it. You did a great job!” A grin spread across her face. “I just thought I looked kind of like Ray from Star Wars if she was a lesbian.” She pulled a bit of it into a little ponytail with her fist, laughing at her own joke. Amity didn’t laugh. She couldn’t see why Luz would find a presumed hero of a ‘star war’ to be a funny punchline, but since it might have just been some bad human cultural thing to disrespect dead people, she digressed.

Suddenly, Luz came to her, enveloping her in a hug and firmly taking hold of her left hand. Amity stepped back in an attempt to prevent the pink tint in her face from reemerging, looking at their linked appendages instead.

“Is there a reason you keep doing that?” The human averted her eyes with a nervous smile.

“I dunno. It makes me feel comfortable. Uh, as long as you’re fine with it-!” 

“I’m fine. I was just curious.”

“Oh… ok!” Luz squeezed her hand a final time, then looked her up and down as if there were something more she wanted to do. “Hm. I’d give you a hug, but I think you’re also in dire need of a shower. I’ll leave you alone.” It was a polite way of telling her she also smelled, well, awful, but she would be lying if she denied that the greasy feeling of her skin and hair wasn’t starting to drive her crazy. The witch quickly showered, and upon exit as left with a choice to make. 

Her clothes were still gross, but she could put them back on for the sake of decency. On the other hand, she could wear the other robe, hanging from the towel closet door.

Amity settled on the robe, then stopped up the other sink with hot water and soap to clean her dirty uniform, similar to how Luz was doing hers. She quickly patted her hair dry with a towel, then reentered the main room. Luz was staring intently at the crystal ball from her perch on the side of their bed. Right now, it seemed that some random RomCom was streaming, probably from around 20 years ago based on the film quality.

“This movie is dumb. If Rosalina loves Chisia and Rolf, why not just date both of them? It’s so pointlessly dramatic.” Amity sighed, plopping down next to her on the cushy mattress.

“Welcome to Boiling Aisles romance. Have her suitors fought in a deathly grudge match yet to prove their undying love?” Luz looked mildly concerned as she shook her head. “No? Tch, this must be one of the boring ones.” It was clear the movie was reaching its end as Amity settled in her spot, as after Rosalia cried out ‘but I cannot choose between you, my loves!’ the screen faded to black and credits began to roll. A classic ending- one that made no contextual sense, that left the watcher angry and confused, with plenty of unanswered questions. Luz just sighed, flopping back onto the bead and groaning. 

“Are you doing ok, Luz?”

“I guess, with going to Belos and stuff, I’ve started thinking about what comes next. I… I still don’t have a way back home, no matter how many enemies we can defeat, and, well, I guess it’s just made me feel so…” She stuck her hands up, as if trying to use them to illustrate her feelings. “Hopeless, I suppose.” Amity honestly wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She could never understand what it had been like for her, stranded in an alien world with no family, no connections, deemed a societal outcast and wanted criminal, all for simply existing how she wanted to. 

Like it had before, one of Luz’s warm hands had found her own. When she tried to link their pinkies, Amity took the opportunity to just hold it completely and give her a squeeze of comfort.

“Why did you join the Emperor’s coven, Amity?” She froze for a moment at the question. This fact, that she had joined the coven knowing it had done despicable things still hung in the air between them like a locked door. She wanted to be able to move past it, but doubted that a simple explanation would be able to fix it. However, it was ultimately the only way she could think of answering the question.

“I think I thought it would finally be a chance for me being an independent, upstanding witch, separate from my family. Unfortunately… dreams don’t always line up with reality. I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I really don’t want to spend any more time in that castle than possible.” Luz nodded. Her eyes were glassy. “Is there something else you wanted to ask? You seem distracted.” The human sat up slowly, smoothing out the fabric of her robe.

“I’m sorry. I guess I’ve been having… other odd thoughts, that are kind of intrusive, and it’s making it hard to focus and think properly.” 

“No, it’s fine. Care to… talk about whatever else is on your mind?” She turned to face the human, immediately being met with reciprocated eye contact. It felt almost as if time had frozen for a moment, and reality only existed there, between their robe-clad bodies.

“I want to kiss you. Why do I want to kiss you?” Luz’s eyes were wide as they stared into Amity’s, and she swore she saw just a spark of that same childlike joy flicker back to life in her chocolate irises. She swallowed hard. Her tongue was dry, feeling like lead in her mouth. “That… is that a normal thing to want to do, with your friends..? Because I don’t think I ever felt like this around Willow, or uh, Gus…” 

“Luz.” Amity grabbed her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. The panic building in the human’s mouth, in her expression, gently resided like an evening tide. “I don’t understand a lot of things. I never understood your human references, or pre-calc, or why my parents always liked Edric and Emira more than me, but… I think I understand this. And if it’s any consolation-” The witch leaned closer, lips barely brushing against Luz’s cheek. “I feel the same way.” And there, she felt the last of her confidence completely dissipate, mere centimeters from the human’s face. If she could force herself to move, she would have smacked herself, but the deep rooted fear that Luz had only been saying it in a playful way found itself back in her chest, clutching her heart in it’s cold, slimy grasp. 

A hand was in her hair. Another on her waist. And on her face, the guiding pair of lips that had been ghosting hot breaths across her cheek finally found purchase, gently slotted against hers. She felt herself melt at the contact, sighing contently.

The bed creaked faintly as the human pressed further into her. Amity obliged, took it all in, wound her hands around Luz’s neck, felt the softness of the sheets on the back of her head while her shoulders hit the pillows. She felt her chest swell with desire.

Amity still couldn’t process everything that was happening. In all honesty, she had expected the night to end wordlessly, sleeping on opposite sides of the same notably cold bed, empty of the other’s presence. She hadn’t expected the human to forgive so fast. She hadn’t even expected her to actually harbor feelings that meant something to Amity.

She wanted to think more about this, about the depth that her anger had actually gone to, but it was hard to focus when every moment they felt closer together, each breath of separation growing more frantic. Amity’s hand found Luz’s cheek, caressing it as they parted again. Their breaths were shallow, almost in sync. 

For the first time that night, Amity had noticed the little details. Her shock of hair that draped across her face, just stopping past her eyebrows. The flecks of warm gold in her deep brown eyes. The hundreds of tiny freckles that decorated her cheeks like uncharted constellations, that Amity would dedicate hours towards to merely document the placement of each auburn speck.

“I think I figured it out, Amity. I think…” Her voice was hoarse, breathy. “ _ Te amo _ .” Amity didn’t know what that meant. 

The fond look the human was giving her was enough to figure it out.

“I love you too, Luz.” Her face broke into a grin as she leaned forward, embracing the witch in an intimate hug. She felt so soft, so indescribably safe between the human’s arms. The suspiciously muscular ones, that she now held the personally awarded liberty to stare at them whenever she felt like it.

But still, something kept nagging at the back of her head. She watched Luz reorient herself beside the witch, pulling the covers over the two of them.

“Luz… do you really mean that?” There it was; her qualms, solidified into a question. It wasn’t that she doubted Luz, it was more… concern, that she had made a mistake. Two weeks was certainly not long enough to develop affections of love. Her eyes softened at the inquiry.

“Of course,  _ mi amor _ .” Amity looked away as Luz took her hand and gave it a little comforting squeeze, seemingly reading her mind. “It might have been far longer ago than I’m willing to admit that I fell in love with every aspect of you, but you really have nothing to worry about. It doesn’t change anything.”

The witch thought through what Luz had said as her head lay against the pillow. Before she had the chance to respond, the day’s exhaustion finally caught up to her and she fell asleep, Luz quickly following suit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the 'Bee can only write bipolar characters' bookclub. first of all, why are yall here-


	14. Chapter 14

“Lilith.” He said her name with little regard. The witch looked thoroughly scared, but did not allow herself to tremble with this enchantment of obedience. “Are you not curious about how your prized pupil is doing on her quest?”

“As I’ve told you, I don’t know what’s taking her so long. There must be some reasonable explanation-” He narrowed her eyes, and she stopped talking. 

“Look at this.” With his long, pointed finger, he drew a ring, allowing Lilith to see inside his mind, through the eyes of his follower.

She was disoriented at first since usually, the view is from the head of whoever wears the helmet, but it didn’t take her long to realize exactly what was going on. The two girls displayed on the ring clung to each other tightly, each of them letting out little breaths of air between each kiss.

“Oh- oh my… they really are… going at it…” Lilith paled. Amity, her top pupil, a woman of iron forged will, reduced to putty under that human girl’s gentle touch. She watched as that Luz girl pushed her onto her back. 

Amity let her. 

She backed up a few feet.

“Belos, I’m sorry, I-”

“No need, Lilith.” He snapped his fingers, and two magic blocking cuffs were suddenly on her wrists. “Take her to the dungeon.” Half a dozen guards leapt out from the flanks and dragged her away.

Of course, it wasn’t exactly something that would warrant an arrest, but he needed her in the dungeon for his plan to work.

“Emperor Belos, If I may speak freely…” Kikimora emerged from beside the shadow of the door, looking about intently. He nodded. “What do you plan to do with the traitor, once she returns?” The Emperor rested the side of his helmet on his fist, as if contemplating.

“We shall pretend as though nothing happened and send the human to the dungeon. They will have no access to seeing each other.” He smiled, though nobody could see it, then made a fist with his other hand. “I will crush her spirit. That way, we won’t have to worry about her… rebellious nature ever again. And with the human, recapturing the Owl Lady should be perfectly easy.” Kikimora nodded sagely. 

“Oh, and, sir? What should we do with the house? It’s currently in the dungeon, because of that terrible beast living inside of it, but we checked the interior. The portal headpiece is gone.”

“Of course. Lilith could never do anything right… I presume it’ll be with the human. Confiscate it once she arrives. In the meantime, just leave it be. If the infernal creature challenges your authority again, burn it down.” 

“It is as good as done, sir.”

“You are dismissed.” She bowed to him then promptly left, leaving him in thought.

He stood up and crossed over to one of the closed windows beside his throne. Drawing back the dark curtain, he noticed that the sun was already setting over the titan’s body.

They were growing closer. He could feel it. He could feel _him_ , leeching away at his power reserves, weakening the enchantments he had placed on the castle. 

Belos would not fail. He couldn’t fail.

The Titan belonged to him, and he would die before allowing a human girl to take his place. 

He slammed his staff into the ground, willing the sedative pipelines open. They rushed through the heart, and he felt some semblance of control return to him.

Everything… would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the slow updates! I have a big AP Euro test coming up and need to study, but be expecting a good chapter coming up!! 18 is gonna be really good :3


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for these shorter updates lol!! this is mainly a bridge chap

Luz had always been a morning person, in the fact that she couldn’t force herself to sleep past 7 if she tried. The rays of the early morning sun splayed across her face. It was always her favorite way to wake up.

From out the window, she could see the river, flowing gently across the rocks. They were so close that she could even hear the faint roar of rushing water.

As she turned, noticing a very much asleep and attached to her arm Amity, the events of the previous night came flooding back to her. A tentative hand reached up to her face as if she were still unsure whether or not what had happened was real.

She felt as though she was still dreaming. Luz really was the luckiest witch in the Boiling Aisles.

Amity looked so blissfully at peace, lips gently parting with each breath. The golden sun lit her face up, making it practically glow.

As much as she would love to just sit there for the rest of the day, she was on a tight schedule.

The human carefully pulled her hand from the witch’s grip, thankfully only causing her to stir slightly, then slid off the foot of the bed. She crossed over into the bathroom. Hopefully, a night of soaking had cleaned her clothes a little bit. She wrung each article out, then hung then over the glass shower wall.

As she waited for them to dry, she noticed her own hunger at a rather demanding growl from her stomach. They hadn’t eaten dinner last night.

_ Child. Feed yourself. I cannot sustain a weak vessel. _ She almost leaped at the words. Somehow, the fact that she was sharing headspace with an ancient celestial being had slipped her mind. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll eat right now.” She located her glove, which she had forgotten conveniently on the bathroom counter, and tried to summon some food.

A Not Dog appeared after a moment. Not her preferred cuisine, but definitely… sustenance. Probably.

She finished it, trying hard to not focus on what meat she was actually eating, and that seemed to satisfy the titan. The weird, cold feeling in her brain went away.

Her clothes weren’t anywhere near dry, but with every precious passing minute she felt the sun rising higher and higher into the sky, so she changed anyway. The robe was discarded carelessly, strewn across the ground.

They were wasting precious flying time. Time that Luz couldn’t afford to waste. 

She looked at herself in the mirror, giving herself her best ‘you can do this’ look of confidence, and set off to get the others ready.

* * *

For once, she couldn’t see the dark rings that had been encircling Amity’s eyes from the past few weeks. It was a refreshing change. 

After breakfast, they all set off on Owlbert towards Bonesburough. They were quite a ways away, but she knew if they went nonstop all day, they could probably reach town by nightfall. Thankfully, over the night, Eda had figured out how to fly again, though it wasn’t easy for her to go far distances without rest. 

It was only a minor detour each time. At this particular stop, the trees were beginning to grow more scarce with the presence of more inhabited spaces. Eda landed carefully to take a breather.

She couldn’t have predicted the ambush. She didn’t think they were covenists- each of them wore dark masks and baggy, discreet clothing. Bandits. They began shooting fireballs, of all things, trying to knock them out of the sky.

God, what was it with her enemies and fireballs? She was getting kind of sick of the repetition. 

Luz swung the palisman around, narrowly dodging a hurdling ball of flame. Amity clutched at her stomach even tighter.

“Shit! We need to get out of here, Luz!” 

“We can’t! Eda is still down-” She did another maneuver to dodge a particularly large spell. They were trying to surround them. She couldn’t let that happen. Luckily, Eda hadn’t been hit yet, and had smacked several of the thieves down beneath her wide talons. 

“She can fend for herself! We need to go, now!” 

“No!” Luz began to sweat. Their strikes were becoming more and more accurate. It was extremely difficult to navigate, all the while having to keep an eye on Eda to make sure she wasn’t in danger.

She moved too late. It wasn’t a direct hit, but it hit Owlbert’s left wig, chipping part off and singing the rest. He let out a broken hoot, falling sideways.

They were falling. Oh god, they were falling from 100 yards in the air, directly towards a troupe of bandits, who were presumably there to hunt her down for the emperor.

Luz gripped the staff, yanking it up as high as she could. They were still falling, but it gave the palisman time to steady himself out so that they shot towards the ground at a more controlled angle, directed in the thicker wooded area away from the village. The treetops abruptly grew closer, and she swallowed dryly.

“Oogh, this is gonna hurt.” Her estimation was correct. They smashed through half a dozen stray branches before Owlbert nailed right into the wide trunk of a tree. The centrifugal force sent Amity and Luz sailing through the air. It was a better alternative to also hitting the tree, at least.

The witch landed before her, tucking and rolling to lessen the impact. Luz wasn’t so lucky. Looming in front of her was a sizable boulder. She swallowed, tucking her arms against her chest, before hitting the rock head-on.

She looked up, rolling over onto her back. The canopy was fuzzy, and the light was far too bright.

Bright… Blight… where was she..?

A weird feeling of numbness spread across her scalp. Her mouth tasted bitterly metallic.   
“Luz! Oh titan, not again…” A hand cradled her neck, and then her vision went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment to save a starving writer,, i need the motivation to finish 18


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahahahaha  
> AHAHAHAHAHAHA  
> i rlly like how this chapter turned out owo :33

This couldn’t be happening. Not again.

She was still breathing, which was good, but also bleeding a considerable amount from her head, which was very bad. Amity pulled off her cape and did her best to secure it around her head to pad up the injured area, then cast her best healing spell. It didn’t seem to do anything.

The air was beginning to buzz with activity. Bugs were awakening, chirping, and droning about in the humid summer air. It was hotter here- they had stumbled directly into the outskirts of a swampland.

She didn’t want to let go of Luz. The memory of what had happened last time stuck painfully in the back of her head, but she needed to assess Owlbert’s damages if they were ever going to get going again. Besides, the longer they stayed stationary, the closer those bandits could be getting.

She paused as she reclined her hands.

Was there really anything wrong with the bandits taking them hostage if they would just be taking them back to Belos?

No, no… it was… unorthodox. She would certainly get in trouble since this was her mission to complete, not that of some rogue bandits.

The palisman had landed about 20 feet away. She lifted the staff and released Owlbert. He looked to be in pain. Half of his right wing was completely singed off.

“Oh, buddy…” She lifted the appendage tenderly. “I’m not sure if my healing spells can work on entire limbs, or palismen for that matter… here’s hoping.” He opened his wings, allowing Amity to cast.

For a terrifying moment, nothing happened.

Then, the burnt flesh recovered, flashing pink and healing over the nub that was now his wing. Sure, it was better than painfully burned flesh, but this rendered them essentially immobile. He couldn’t fly with half a wing, let alone with two other passengers.

He hooted softly in thanks, but Amity could hardly feel like she accomplished anything.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do better, bud…” She set the palisman down. He tried to fly, managing to go a few feet before careening into the ground. 

“Here. I’ll carry you.” The bird hopped into her hand, which she then lifted to her shoulder so he could see everything from up high again.

They didn’t have many other options, so the two sat in apprehensive silence beside the girl, praying that she would wake up.

* * *

It had been almost two hours. She swatted off another pesky insect from the back of her hand.

It didn’t seem that they were being trailed, but the rapidly disappearing daylight was beginning to concern her. She didn’t know much about this curse thing, but if it was going to kill Luz after a certain period of time, she didn’t want to waste any of it sitting around.

The witch straightened herself out and prepared to cast an abomination. However, before she could begin, she heard something in the distance smashing through the trees. 

At first, she changed her position to cast it as a wall to block the intruder but dropped her hand when she saw the gray feathers.

“Eda! Are you hurt?” She clawed her way into the clearing, shaking loose the stray leaves and foliage stuck between her plumage.

“Nah. They couldn’t hit me. And King’s fine.” She raised her chin to reveal a leather bag, with a surprisingly asleep King nestled inside. “Weird demon. Falls asleep in the least peaceful of circumstances.” She sighed. “Anyways. I think we have somewhere to be. I could smell the blood all the way from the past settlement.” Amity swallowed hard.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Amity hadn’t taken Eda as somebody who easily did favors for others, but it seemed that when it came to Luz, she didn’t care what happened in order to keep her safe. She dashed through the foliage with an unconscious Luz and concerned Amity upon her back.

They were lucky enough to come out into another tiny village. Well, it wasn’t tiny, actually, but the abundant plant life and small cottages made the town feel like it was still a part of the forest surrounding it. 

“I think I see a healer’s shack!” …Shack was a definite understatement. The building was easily the biggest in the entire village, and definitely the most well-decorated. Its outer walls were covered in vines blossoming with vibrant pink and pale blue flowers. A massive wooden sign titled ‘HEALERS’ hung above the doorway. 

Amity hopped off Eda’s back and carefully carried Luz to the door, knocking with her elbow. She might have dropped Luz in shock if she weren’t so attentive.

“Boscha?” The grudgby star merely that stood before her in the doorway raised an eyebrow at the comment.

“Observant as always I see, Blight.” She looked down at the person limp in her arms. “Ah, finally got the human to ‘fall’ for you?” Another figure appeared behind her, placing a stern grip on the taller woman’s shoulder. Her glasses flashed oddly before she fully stepped into view.

“Boscha. I don’t think now is the time for jokes.” Willow touched a hand to the human’s forehead. “She has a minor concussion. Come inside, I’ll make tea.” She smiled slightly at Amity, who returned the gesture after a moment. Amity had missed talking to her. It was a fond, delicate exchange they had left unused for too long.

* * *

Boscha and Willow stood in front of the fireplace, respectively sipping their drinks of preference from ceramic mugs(Boscha made herself hot chocolate since she apparently didn’t care for tea). Willow’s was a soft olive green with a few sculpted succulents on the side, whilst Boscha’s simply read ‘ **I GET BITCHES** ’ in block text. Classy. 

She drank a bit from her own mug, a floral blend, which had ‘World’s Okayest Lesbian’ written on the side. She wondered what occasion Willow had decided to purchase it for herself, if that was even why she owned the cup. Amity wouldn’t put it past her to sexuality-assign her guests with mugs she bought just for the sake of amusing this hobby of hers- in which case, she would be correct.

“Well, it’s a good thing you guys came here. Concussions are fairly easy to heal.” Amity nodded.

“That’s good. I meant to ask, but- what are you doing out here, Willow?” A hint of a grin tugged at her lips.

“This is my coven. We specialize in plant-based magical healing.” 

“You founded a coven? That’s incredible…” It wasn’t hard to believe. Willow had always been a powerful and promising witch; she had just taken a while to realize it. Boscha, on the other hand… well, when she thought that the witch would be the last person she expected to run into in a place like this, she meant it. Though, it was odd, the way she was treating her- it was playfully callous, but lacking her trademark acrid, untamable anger behind it. She was talking to her like she’d expect Boscha to talk to a close friend, which was just confusing. They never reconciled as friends after Amity decided she wanted to leave that part of her life behind. But if she was following a path of redemption, hell, Amity wasn’t going to stop her. “What about you, Boscha? I thought you were leading a professional Grudgby team?”

“Oh, Blight hasn’t heard of visiting friends before? Tch.” Willow gave her a look of disapproval, and she looked to her shoes. “No, no, you’re right- sorry, that was mean… I am. Leading my own team, that is. I’m just visiting since we have a game coming up in a few days.” Amity gasped. 

“Willow? You’re playing grudgby now?” The witch nodded bashfully. 

“Well, I’m not the best, but Boscha said I had ‘mad talent’ that would be fantastic on the team. So I joined.” 

“We’re undefeated.” Boscha quipped.

“Oh, you!” She elbowed the grudgby captain playfully. Boscha reciprocated the action with a laugh, leaving each of them giggling slightly. 

Amity had never heard Boscha apologize before. Never.

She… really had changed, huh? Not that she couldn’t plainly see why; Willow’s soft but stern gaze could bend the most stubborn of souls, and it seemed that precise stare had all but melted Boscha, along with all of the baggage of bitterness from the past.

Willow suddenly straightened up, brushing off her soft blue cable knit as if there were anything on it and cleared her throat. However, a small smile remained plastered across her face. 

“I’m sorry. That was unprofessional. Let’s get started, shall we?” Amity nodded, watching keenly as she rolled out a mat on the coffee table, then moved to pick up the unconscious Luz and lay her down to further examine the damage. She carefully unwound her cape, inspecting the wound.

“Physically… the worst I can find is this hit, on the left side of her skull, besides a few scratches on her arms. It looks like it’s fractured, but not broken. That's an easy fix. Inside her head, however…” She turned her face at a different angle, looking over every inch of skin. “We’re going to have to go into her memories to make sure nothing is broken.” Amity flushed pink, recalling exactly what they had done the prior night that must have stuck in her memories. 

“Aha… is that, uh, is that really necessary?” Her throat felt dry. Willow just deadpanned, letting go of Luz’s face after applying a healing balm and chanting a spell under her breath.

“If you want her to wake up before she slips into a coma, yes, it is.” She blinked owlishly at the witch. “What, is there something embarrassing in there you don’t want me to see?” Amity’s now pink cheeks gave her away. She knew no amount of excuses would get her out of it, so she just sighed, putting up a hand in defeat. “You have nothing to worry about, Amity, I am a professional. I don’t judge.” Boscha chugged the rest of her beverage, looking at between the witches skeptically as if trying to understand exactly what they were conveying to each other. Of course, Boscha had never really been involved in her… romantic life, so to speak, so it was understandable that she didn’t quite see what Amity’s flush meant, other than a show of embarrassment. She was fine with it staying that way. 

“Ok. Fine.”Willow nodded, then crossed over to the wall to retrieve a box on one of the shelves. Within it was a single bell and a weird looking wand. She took the items and slipped them into the bag. 

Amity held down her knee in an attempt to get it to stop bouncing around. She could feel the tremors of anxiety budding in her throat, but kept her jaw locked shut for her own sake.

“Amity, you’re coming with me. I need to know how to fix her more recent memories.” She had been expecting as much. Amity stepped beside the witch, calming her nerves with a deep breath.

“Boscha, can you bring us back? I dismissed the rest of my staff for the day.” She had reclined on the couch, eyes glued to her scroll.

“Mhm. Just give me a ring.” 

With that, Willow completed the circle, and they were transported into Luz’s mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eda, king, owlbert and Malin Gael just chillin outside: 0-0  
> this was supposed to be just one chapter but it got super long for no reason so two chapters it is <3 leave a comment to support a severely behind on her AP Euro homework writer


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ay sorry i disappeared for like 10 days,, schoolwork and depression have been hitting kinda hard so my writing speed isn't as fast as id like. On the bright side tho, I'm also working on a new lumity fic rn!! it's basically 'TOH but if the beta designs/personalities had been put into the show' and ooh boy, i like how it's turning out. not too happy w this chapter but hopefully the next will be better !! <3

The ground beneath her dissolved, and she felt the very fabric of her being fray, tear away then abruptly come back to her as her feet touched a rounded stone path. Willow seemed unfazed, brushing some lint off her pants and turning to walk down the center of her aisle of memories.

“I’m sorry Boscha was rude to you. I think it’s your whole getup- she hates those emperor’s coven pawns.” Amity would have dismissed the comment with a hardly notable ‘thank you’, but was momentarily too swept up in her surroundings to respond. It was strange, in comparison to the photos she had seen in her textbook. Each significant memory was placed on a pedestal, but they seemed to all be made up of different elements- vines, abomination goo, feathers, pillars of rock, various neon liquids, all haphazardly floating around each other to hold the memory up. It was complete and utter chaos- not something she had envisioned for a witch of Luz’s caliber. Somehow, though, the disorder worked. It made sense- the memories were supposed to reflect one’s magical path, and Luz had pursued them all, despite her very human self who shouldn’t have been able to do any of them in the first place.

“Alrighty.” Willow cracked her knuckles and pulled out the wand she had stashed. “Let’s get to work.” The two made their way down the stony road lining the portals on either side in silence. What had it been… One, two years since she had last spent time with Willow? They were certainly friends, just not the closest compared to others. The whole situation with Luz’s exile and their conflicting opinions hadn’t exactly helped. 

“What does that thing do?”   
“My wand? It’s like a metal detector for misplaced magical energy. Broken memories emit a strong signal that’ll attract the tip.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” Amity swallowed. She wished she could say something to break the ice. Somehow, having Boscha present had made conversation easier. 

Wow. She never thought that sentence would come out of her brain, but then again, here she was, literally walking through Luz’s memories with her childhood friend. Not exactly her average afternoon stroll.

A thought suddenly came to her mind as she passed a particular memory- the one of Luz extracting Willow’s memories back in freshman year.   
“Do you think we’re going to run into inner Luz soon?” Willow shrugged, squinting at the direction her wand went with each step. 

“I’ve done this for a while. Sometimes inner versions never come out. Usually they’re around if the person is feeling conflicted, so we should be ok with Luz here…” She shot a side glance at Amity. “...right?”

“I… don’t know.” The feelings of unease gathered in her gut again. Was she supposed to know what was going on in her head, now that they were, what, dating? They hadn’t solidified anything. 

“That’s fine. We’ll be ok either way since Luz isn’t a vengeful spirit. Oh! We got one.” The wand darted forward, and they ran to keep up with its increasing speed which eventually came to a stop in front of an interesting memory. It was set in pitch darkness, but the more concerning thing was the massive clawed hands clutching the edges of the frame. A hunched body and red face loomed over them.    
“This memory is not broken. Only temporary.” He spoke with a deep voice that rattled the foundation of the landscape. 

Sure, someday she might have wanted to stick around to have a chat with the massive terrifying demon thing in Luz’s memories, but for now, she had more important priorities, like getting the hell away from there.

He had an aura of death, the stench of rotting corpses and spilled blood spoiling the air around him. She couldn’t have been happier knowing that they didn’t have to interact with it.

Willow didn’t seem to need to be told twice either. She quickly moved on, walking at a fast pace waiting for the wand to latch onto a different memory.    
“Have any idea who that was?” Amity shook her head. “I figured. Usually, I’d investigate more, but he doesn’t seem like much of a threat, so it’s… probably fine. Looks like we’re coming to the end of her memories anyways. If something is broken, it’ll be here.” She was right. Not too far away, the memories came to an abrupt stop, and after that, it looked like the pedestals were just beginning to emerge from the ground, developing a portal face within like a budding flower. 

“Aha! Found it.” Willow walked a few paces, eventually coming to a stop at the second to last memory in the collection. She saw the photo and immediately wanted to hurl. It didn’t show the part that she was nervous about, but she recognized the layout of the room, the closed bathroom door, her helmet laying on the disheveled sheets.

“You've got to be kidding me.” Willow didn’t seem to hear her, lifting herself through the surface into the memory. Amity really didn’t want to go in there to fix things, but she didn’t have much of a choice.

Begrudgingly, she followed the witch inside, hopefully for the last time. 

Immediately she saw her past self seated on the bed. She was looking down at her helmet. 

Amity remembered how the scene played out in detail, but something was clearly off. A hesitant hand touched the cool metal but recoiled as the bathroom door flung open. The memory of her followed Luz back into the bathroom.    
“That’s not right, I think…” Willow gave her an odd glance. 

“You think?” 

“Just… wait for them to come back out.” After around 15 minutes of waiting, the two finally exited the bathroom, Luz’s hair freshly cut. They sat back down, with the helmet placed strategically between them. It seemed like they were talking about the movie.

“...yeah, that’s dumb… but, do you ever think that maybe…” Luz stared into the memory’s eyes, but dropped them when her pinky brushed against the silvery object. “Nevermind. Let’s go to bed, I’m tired.” She watched herself dejectedly slide under the covers, on the farthest possible side from Luz.

“Yeah, this definitely isn’t right.” The memory flickered back to the beginning. Amity crossed the room and moved the silvery object from where it lay dejected on the bed to the side table by the front door. 

“That’s fixed then. Let’s get going.” 

“No, we need to make sure that wasn’t the only thing out of place. The colors haven’t come back yet.” Amity sighed.

“Titan, nothing in here makes sense. But… fine. If it’ll ensure Luz wakes up.” It was now doomed to be a surely awkward experience, but if it came with a guarantee of her beloved human getting out of this unscathed, she was willing to do anything. 

She watched with little interest as the scene unfolded, following Luz into the bathroom, then eventually coming back out and sitting beside each other on the bed. As Luz’s hand made contact with her memory self, the room lit back up with color. And then, she watched as they moved closer, hands intertwining, lips pushing against each other. Willow finally seemed to put two and two together, and promptly spun around and hopped out of the frame. Thank goodness. If she hadn’t understood her reasonable embarrassment then, she sure did now. Amity followed the witch in suit.

“I see you didn’t waste any time,” Willow said nonchalantly, but with just the hint of a smile peeking from beneath her facade.

“Oh, like you and Boscha aren’t doing the same thing- I see the way she looks at you.” Her face was pink now, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it. Pushing the subject onto others was the best way to avoid confrontation.

“We haven’t.” The witch replied almost immediately in an uncharacteristically smug tone. “..yet.” Amity gasped.

“You scoundrel! Aagh.” She could poke fun at Willow all day long, but now the possibility was bothering her. “But, wait… you two aren't… together, are you?”

“No. But for what it’s worth, I’m happy things have worked out between you and Luz.” 

“I…” She could explain the complicated mess that was their current relationship, or- she could dodge that bullet completely and change the subject. “Thanks, Willow. Anyways though, why joke about that if you aren’t..? I thought there was like a bitter rivalry thing going on between you two.” That elicited a laugh from the other witch.

“Bitter rivalry? I thought if anybody would know about her complete absence of positive social skills it would be you, Amity.” She sighed, packing away her wand. Soon they would be returning to the real world. All she had to do was ring the bell, but her hand hesitated, wound about the carved wooden handle tightly. “It’s just… she was never exactly good at keeping her mouth shut, you know? She was like a 12-year-old boy for the longest time in terms of a lot of things; emotional outbreaks, not getting schoolwork done, being  _ awful _ at expressing emotions and romantic interest… you know, the basics.” The witch’s voice was oddly fond. “ A while ago, she came to me asking for help with being a good person, of all things. And I like helping people, so I agreed on the condition that she helped me with work in my coven every now and again, and now, we’re here.” She looked up at the demon thing, far away from them but still very prominently terrifying.

Willow paused to inspect the vines wrapped around one of her memories. This one looked like 16 or 17-year-old Luz. She was hunched over a massive caterpillar with a scalpel in hand and a determined set to her brows. Amity swallowed hard, remembering she knew almost nothing about what had been going on with the human between their childhood years and now.

“Here, in relationship purgatory, I guess. She’s told me how she feels, I think I’m ok with that, and then you remember that neither of us know how to bring up the subject of a relationship anymore and that we’re both too scared to shatter this perfect little friendship we’ve set up.” Willow seemed to be growing more self-conscious by the second.

“Wait, ‘ok with it’..? You mean-” She blew air out of her mouth. Oh titan, did that mean she was going to have to start being nice to Boscha? 

She… wasn’t sure how she felt about that quite yet. “Sorry I’m not so articulated right now, I’m just…” Amity struggled still to find the right words to complete her thought. 

“Is that idea so hard to grapple with? Of course that’s what I mean. Honestly, Amity, you can be so dense sometimes… Why would I have ever agreed to this mutual respect mileage program if I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in her?”

“I- I see. I guess that makes sense.” Willow didn’t respond. She seemed to be waiting for something else. A word of reassurance, no… 

She wanted advice. 

“I- If you’re asking me for a direction to go, I say follow your heart, and if things don’t feel right… they just weren’t meant to be.” Amity would be lying if giving that advice didn’t hurt her heart just a little bit. Though she had mostly removed herself from the witch’s life, she really did want Willow to live happily, and Boscha didn’t exactly have the cleanest track record when it came to being a kind and nurturing soul. But if Willow truly believed in her, for the stubborn and intolerant person she could be, then Amity was also willing to give the grudgby star a second chance.

“I’m thinking of following my heart. My brain is always confused, and even though my heart is saying go for it, it hasn’t always led me to the best of people.” Amity’s heart wrenched as she realized Willow was talking about _ her _ . 

And, well, she wasn’t necessarily wrong. Amity had been a terrible friend to Willow back in school up until their final years, but the fact that she had taken Amity’s rudeness to heart and cut her out instead of letting her back in still hurt. She had given it her all, but in the end, it didn’t mean anything if Willow didn’t accept it.

“Willow, I- I’m sorry. I know I was never the best of friends to you, but I hope you can believe me when I say that I truly never wanted things to turn out like they did. I was weak, and-” 

“You don’t need to apologize, Amity. I think you’ve done enough of that for now.” She froze. The half-formed, hardly sensible string of words she had thrown together in her head seemed to fall away into the complete oblivion of forgetfulness. “Things weren’t always good, but they turned out ok, yeah?” A sad smile found the witch’s lips as she pushed up her glasses. “I think this time, following my heart isn’t such a bad idea.” The conversation left unspoken and unresolved that had been plaguing the ever since her arrival finally, blissfully came to an end. A means of redemption and forgiveness was earned in different ways, but she knew then that she had finally, truly won it for herself. Part of her chest seemed to become warmer, knowing that she had ultimately been able to become something other than a burden or acquaintance- a friend.

“Let’s head back.”

“Sounds like a plan.” 

* * *

“What took you two so long?” Boscha sounded mildly annoyed, but no amount of her aloof attitude could mask her obvious concern.

“Just ran into some difficulties. But everything is fixed now. She should be coming to in a few hours.” The sky was a deep navy now- they had missed the sunset. “Oh, shoot, it’s late. I’ll prepare a room for you two.” Before Willow even finished speaking, she knew Boscha would finally understand what was going on. For some reason though, she didn’t try to stop it from happening. As the final word passed through her lips, the grudgby player’s pink face lit up in recognition.   
“Ohhhhhhhhh. Oh. You and-” Boscha made a quick flicking motion between Amity and Luz. “You’re… ok. That makes a lot of sense.” She was almost taken aback by the statement.

“Oh, um, two rooms is fine.” The witch simply nodded and left, rummaging through some closet before turning around the corner and exiting her view. 

Part of her had been waiting for Boscha to say something about the inferiority of humans or Amity still being ‘soft’ after all those years, but in all honesty, she seemed to care more about longingly staring down the grandfather clock quietly ticking away in the back corner of the room than about anything involving her personal life.

And that attitude, she realized, had completely exceeded her expectations.

Despite this clear progress, after sitting in awkward silence for around 5 minutes, Amity was nearly praying for the witch to come back. If things were stiff between her and Willow, things were humiliatingly awkward between herself and Boscha. Once she had stopped talking to her and everybody in her crew freshman year, she had considered that chapter of her life over. Reconcile hadn’t ever crossed her mind- she didn’t believe that people like Boscha could change, and oh, how she had been proven wrong. The witch sitting across from her was clearly aware of this, the tension, but at least she had a scroll to stare at as an excuse. Amity just got to look around at the somewhat interesting interior decoration, mostly consisting of antique floral china and colorful plants she had never seen before, fiercely avoiding her gaze.

After what had felt like hours, the sound of a door clicking open signified that Willow had reentered the room. However, the visit was clearly temporary, as she disappeared back into the hallways after only a moment with Luz draped across her arms. She felt herself wanting to follow them, just to make sure everything was going to be fine and ensure that she was sitting in a comfortable position so that she wouldn’t wake up with a crick in her neck or back pains, and titan, Willow might need help with rehabilitating her in case she had another magical seizure- or the curse, oh stars, if the curse did that thing again-

“Whoa, dude. Chill out, she’s going to be fine. Willow is a professional.” Even though the grudgby player had scarcely been observing her, she had picked up on the sweat beading on her brow, the fingers digging into her knees while she anxiously rocked herself back and forth. “Now you’re making me nervous, jeez. Give me a second.” Bosha stood up and strolled over to the little beverage station located a few feet behind the couch. A calculated hand scooped a few different ingredients into the little wire basket she left open in her other hand. Then she snapped it shut and dunked it into a mug full of steaming water, forcing the object into Amity’s shaking clutch.    
“Since she didn’t give you enough tea beforehand, apparently.”    
“What’s in this?”   
“I just threw in every herb that’s supposed to make you tired. Lavender, nutmeg, chamomile, passionflower, well, that’s more for taste, but you know, the basics.”

“Oh.” She took a tentative sip. It was an odd blend, but it definitely soothed her nerves a little bit. Her body finally stopped quivering with another sip, and Boscha seemed almost… relieved?

“It’s not that hard to say thank you, Blight.” 

“...thanks, Boscha.” Her already rose-colored complexion seemed to turn a little bit pinker at the comment.

“Don’t mention it.” They hadn’t spoken at all about the elephant in the room, but Amity was ok with it.

Not everybody was going to forgive her. Not everybody deserved to be forgiven by her, either. And while she was still figuring out where Boscha lay in that situation, she was ok with residing in the comfortable silence between them, interrupted only with the occasional sip Amity took from her mug.

Willow finally came back in after some time with a small tray.

“It looks like my staff made too many sandwiches this afternoon. Here, eat up.” She set the platter down, revealing itself to be covered in probably the most excessively extravagant platter of sandwiches she’d ever seen. Even though the sandwiches themselves were just made of egg salad between slices of fluffy white bread, each one was meticulously cut into flower shapes. The plate was also scattered with tiny yellow blooms. 

“Are these edible?” 

“Yeah. Those are just flowering broccoli buds.” 

“Oh. Cool.” Her stomach grumbled, and suddenly the exhaustion of the day hit her. Her last meal had been a scant piece of questionable jerky that Luz has summoned outside of their hotel before they left in the morning. After the stressful day she’d had, she was more than grateful for a filling dinner that she could eat without worrying that there was some rogue beast or bounty hunter aiming to kill the second she let her guard down.

“Oh titan, Willow, whatever you’re paying your staff isn’t enough. These are the best sandwiches I’ve ever tasted.”    
“I think you’re just hungry, but thank you. I’ll pass your condolences on to them.” As Amity shoveled the morsels into her mouth, Willow began to sway, obviously weary from all the magic she had done that day. 

“Alright. I’m calling it a night. Amity, leftovers can just go back into the fridge in the kitchen down the hall to the right, and your room is down the other hall. It’s the blue door with hibiscus on it.” Not long after her, Boscha stretched out with a yawn and followed suit, leaving her alone in the living room. 

The table was scantily lit with a dim overhead light, but she found that she didn’t mind. The whole place reminded her of her grandfather’s study when she used to sit and listen to him recall his adventures, sometimes acting out scenes as he dramatically read passages from his journals. She missed those years- she missed him, too. But now wasn’t the time to get emotional, or reflect on the other questions swarming her mind. Luz was depending on her, and as much as she would hate to admit it, she was relying on Luz too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaha, if u couldn't tell i am slightly obsessed with the idea of boschlow but only if boscha gets the redemption arc she DESERVES 😤😤😤 next chapter we're getting back to the lumity tho so don't worry ajahajhgfd  
> anyways leave a comment to save an exhausted writers life <3 love my 5 consistent commenters yall are so swag


	18. Chapter 18

A familiar face. Who was it?

The thing was like a dark blob, shifting through visages at such a high frequency she couldn’t tell exactly who she was looking at during any given time. A few distinguished ones stuck out- her classmates, her friends, Bane, her mother, faces of professors from Hexside-

It stopped, and finally took a decisive form. 

Light brown unkempt hair, fading to blue at the tips, reaching past a sloped pair of thin shoulders, dainty and unfit from a life of being waited on hand and foot. Gorgeous golden eyes, like prehistorically preserved amber.

Little pointed ears that flushed pink when she was nervous and sat at different angles depending on her mood framed her face, with a small section of hair pulled into a ponytail in the back.

Amity Blight, her friend, her past enemy, her current… 

Ugh. everything hurt. She stirred, eyes finally snapping open to reveal a white ceiling fan making painfully slow turns. Floral wallpaper, weird-smelling sheets… where the hell was she? It smelled like her grandma’s closet.

She tried to sit up, but very quickly came to the realization that her eyes were the only moving parts at the moment. Ah, sleep paralysis, her old friend, how she hadn’t missed it. Any minute now, an encounter with some shadowy hellspawn from the depths of her nightmares was to be expected.

The scariest part of it was probably the silence. There was a movement in the corner of her eye, or maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her..? 

It moved in silence, until finally, it stopped at the foot of her bed and she could see it’s mask, with massive pronged antlers and an impossibly tall figure.

She wanted to scream. His hand reached out, closing around her throat. Even if there was no substance to it, she felt her windpipe close up in panic, and she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t scream-    
“Luz! You’re awake!” He looked to the side and abruptly vanished as light flooded the room. “Luz.” A warm hand cupped her cheek, then felt her forehead as if testing for flu. “Oh, good. You’re normal.”   
“Amity?” Feeling came back to her chest as she craned her neck to get a better look around. 

She found comfort in Amity’s gesture, and the way she subconsciously tucked loose pieces of her choppy hair back behind her ear. It was clear the witch had never truly gotten used to them- her hand lingered there for just a moment’s hesitation, feeling the soft curve of flesh in contrast to the sharp angle of her own. She forcibly bit back at the urge to reach up and touch Amity's ears to relish in the beautiful weirdness of it all, to feel a fraction of that childish wonder reflecting in the witch's eyes.

“Of course. How are you feeling?” 

“I’m fine… where are we, though? I remember-” The memory of rocketing through the air, swearing as she fell, that it might have been her last moment alive, flashed through her mind painfully. “I- I remember falling, and then-” She clasped her shaking hands in front of her as if wringing the neck of some invisible force. Amity gently pushed them down, holding her hand until the trembling finally stopped.   
“You don’t have to retell it, I’m just glad you’re ok.” Her eyes were stormy with thought, lips pursed in concern, and all she felt like doing was pulling her into bed beside her. She looked so cold… 

Luz chewed the inside of her cheek, the faint, choking grasp of the curse suddenly very present.    
“How far are we from the castle?”

“Oh, at least a day’s trip, I think. Why?”

“We need to leave as soon as possible. Tomorrow morning, ideally.” Amity gasped, yanking back her hand. She was framed in dust particles she had kicked up around the room, illuminated by the hall light like a glowing halo.

“Absolutely not! Do you not remember how you almost died less than 12 hours ago? You need to rest before we can go and fight the most powerful witch to ever exist-”   


“If we don’t leave soon, this curse will kill me before Belos gets the chance.” Amity swallowed.

“Oh…” Her voice dropped in volume. There was an almost waiver in pitch as she whispered the rest. “Are you sure? Is-is it the titan’s voice again?”

“No, I can just… feel it, in my chest. I’m encroaching on this protection spell’s expiration date.” Her brow creased. It was her thinking face.   


“...I still… Luz, I really don’t like this…” She sighed, a deep one of defeat. “But… fine. You need to get a good night of sleep before we’re going anywhere, though. Goodnight.” Luz squeezed Amity’s hand before she pulled out of her grip and made her way to the doorway.    
“Wait.” It wasn’t quite a cohesive thought she had produced, but she did know one thing. 

She didn’t want to sleep by herself anymore. 

“Spend the night with me?” The witch turned pink.

“Luz, I just said that you needed to get a good night of slee-”

“No. Not like that,” A giggle slipped out. “You have a dirty mind. I mean, just, sleep next to me? Please?” Her furrowed brow creased further as she pondered Luz’s request.

“If it’ll help you sleep, I- I’ll do anything.” The ceiling fan continued its slow circles. She wondered who this room could belong to, but was too tired to worry about it yet. It felt like somewhere safe. That was enough for her.

Amity slid into the sheets beside her, careful to avoid contact. A pang of sadness shot through her chest.

_ Had she done something wrong? _

“Amity…” The human reached out, enveloping Amity’s shoulders in her arms and drawing her close. She was tense, incredibly so. “Is something wrong?” Her answer came a minute later, slightly muffled by the pillow she was laying on.    
“No.”

She wanted to argue. Luz hated to leave people to suffer through things without being able to talk about it, but the way Amity had shut her down made her tentative about asking again. 

“Ok.” 

* * *

“Oh my god, Amity didn’t tell me this was your place!” Luz could tell Willow had gotten stronger, as she didn’t even waiver when she launched herself into the witch’s arms. She squeezed one of the thick, cordlike appendages between her hands. “Woah! I’m going to need you to drop the workout routine, Willow. These are some nice arms.” She laughed and set the human down.

“Oh, it’s nothing, just my weekly grudgby conditioning.” She remarked with a sly grin.

“You play grudgby now? That’s so cool!” A wave of her hand dismissed the comment, and instead, she gestured for an excited Luz and significantly exhausted-looking Amity to follow her into the kitchen. It smelled wonderful, even though she didn’t have the slightest idea what she was looking at. 

“We made you guys some breakfast, so eat as much as you like.” She slung a duffel bag over her shoulder. “I won’t be back until late tonight. Grudgby match in Southside.” 

“We..?”

“Boscha and myself. I think she’s already waiting on me outside. Have a nice day!” She shouted the last part, closing the door behind her.

“Wait- her and Boscha are-”   
“Friends? Yeah. It’s… kinda a long story that I don’t know most of. Maybe ask her about it next time you two hang out.” 

“Ah. Ok.” They each loaded up their plates with the aromatic substances and sat down to eat in silence. Amity finished about half of her plate and began pushing around some brown stuff that tasted kind of like mashed potatoes with the texture of pulled pork.

“Amity.” She didn’t look up, but the incessant fidgeting came to a stop. “There’s obviously something bothering you.”    
“I changed my mind. About Belos.” Her plate clattered to the dining table, and she finally met the human’s eyes with an intense gaze. “I’m not ok with taking you in. What I’ll do instead is… I’ll turn myself in empty-handed, and then, when I’m getting arrested, you and Eda can stage an attack on the heart.” Luz gasped.

“No! That’s ridiculous Amity, do you have any idea how dangerous…” She looked down at her food. “Oh shit. Eda.”

* * *

She found the two of them snuggled up beside a beast keeping stable inside a giant nest, by far the best-case scenario of the wild ideas that had been racing through her mind prior to finding them, consisting of but not limited to finding Eda flavored limited edition fried ‘chicken’ on sale nearby.

“Thank goodness…” Luz panted, having run all the way across the small town. They still seemed to be asleep, but as she neared with the plate of food, Eda perked up.

“Ahhhh… good morning, kid. Feeling better?” She yawned, stretching a claw out to the sky.

“Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were outside, or that nobody told-”

“No, no, you’re fine. Willow explained everything, then took me here. They have some pretty high-quality nesting if I do say so myself.” She rolled her eyes, nudging King awake. “Besides, I doubt I’d be able to appreciate the luxury of a nice bed in this… form.”

“Oh, yeah… forgot about that. But speaking of lifting the curse, we should be getting to the emperor’s castle soon, and the sooner we get there, the sooner we can get Lilith to heal your curse!” Eda looked cross, flitting ehr eyes down to the grass sadly.    
“Yeah… you let that coven witch keep 24/7 tabs on you, kid?”    
“What..?” Luz turned around, and a blur of movement caught her eye behind the stable bulletin. It wasn’t hard to discern this spy. Her shiny boots and the bottom of her puffy pants were completely revealed. After realizing everybody had spotted her, she nervously stepped out into view. 

“Hi… sorry, I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to follow you- but I brought our stuff in case we’re leaving.” Both of their respective bags were thrown over her dainty shoulders. 

“That’s fine. Where’s Owlbert?” She spotted the staff propped up in the corner and immediately noticed something was wrong. The wooden staff now in her hands, she watched in horror as Owlbert’s wing uncurled into a half charred stump.    
“Oh… this is bad.”

“It’s not ideal, but I’m sure there’s a fix. In the meantime, you guys can hitch a ride on the ol owl lady herself.” She narrowed her eyes. “But just this once. Don’t expect me to be hauling you guys around after I get healed. Ya hear me?” Luz’s mood was already dampened by Owlbert’s injury, but a small smile crept onto her lips at Eda’s sarcastic crack. She never could act grumpy around her.    
“We hear you, loud and clear. Let’s get going. I’m done with traveling for now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school is kicking my ASS rn so i can hardly write but take this impromptu chapter <3 stuff is FINALLY gonna get interesting next chapter so yeah, also tysm to everybody who left comments !!! i haven't responded to any of them yet but let me just tell you all that I've read them and i really appreciate the support more than u can imagine, kith !!!


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont believe in a good chapter without a little bit of crying ok

Her stomach turned uncomfortably as her feet finally met earth again for the first time since breakfast. The entire ride through the woods had been a nerve-wracking, nausea-inducing, generally awful experience. Luz seemed to be doing fine, not a hint of green on her soft tawny cheeks.

Her nervousness was concocted from more than just the general nausea of having to ride a giant owl across the country - in mere minutes, they would be walking out of these woods one way or another and going into Belos’s castle, and they still hadn’t come to an agreement on the situation. Since Luz ran off in the middle of their conversation to talk to Eda instead, she had effectively dropped the subject from conversation. 

Nothing would have ever worked enough to make her forget, though.

She gingerly reached out and touched her arm. 

There were so many things they needed to talk about and so little time. Amity found herself wishing for just an hour alone with the human, to sort things out so that she didn’t overthink every word Luz had ever said to her over and over again wondering where she went wrong again.

How could she sit so unbothered by this? She seemed more focused on jotting something down in her notebook than ever beginning to confront the cavernous gap in understanding between them.

She looked up, folding the book and dropping it back into her bag. 

“Hm?” She finally had her attention. She could tell her everything, gush about how much she loved her and making her laugh and the way her eyes flickered to life every morning like crackling bonfires hardly contained in those coppery irises, she could convince her to not go along with the stupid suicide mission she had devised and let Amity for once take the blow instead of her. 

“I’m nervous about this mission.” She squeaked. All of the big talk in her head made her even more nervous as she shrank away from the human.

Luz’s hands were bigger than hers. It was a small detail she had picked up some time ago, and she could feel the stark difference as Luz’s hand wrapped around hers nonchalantly. 

“Don’t be nervous.” She squeezed her hand lightly, making Amity’s heart nearly skip a beat. She was too sappy for this stuff- they had literally professed their love to each other less than a week ago, and yet here she was, getting nervous over hand-holding. 

“I still think we should go with my plan. It’s a lot safer.” 

“How is that safer? They kill failed recruits in extreme situations like this. It’d only be safer for… for me…” She seemed to finally realize what Amity had been trying to do. “No, Amity, that’s- that’s an absolutely crazy idea-”

“This isn’t crazy! You’ve spent your entire life here in fear of imminent death, running for your life at every point, and I never did a thing to help! When we were 14 I sat and watched helplessly as you and Eda almost died- and I did nothing-!” Amity pulled her hand from Luz’s grasp, albeit reluctantly, and balled them up against the tunic around her stomach. She was angry, but not at anybody but herself. “For once, titan, you don’t need to be the hero. I don’t want you to-” She choked back a quiet sob. Her last sentence came out almost silent. “How could I ever live with myself if I let you die..?” Luz’s gaze softened. She scooted herself over next to Amity and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. After she finally felt the witch’s sobs subsiding, she pulled away, leaving one arm over her shoulder. 

“Look… I might not be able to predict the outcome of this with my visions, but… what kind of an ending to a story would my downfall be? The prophets, the titan, he wouldn’t choose someone bound to death. I may not be the main character in the story of the Boiling Aisles, but Amity, I am in my own story!” She could have sworn, if she closed her eyes and pretended that everything was fine that she almost felt 14 again, listening to Luz’s excited rambles about everyone’s relative place in the universe and acceptance while eating lunch together on the back steps of Hexside. “I’m not about to let mine end like this. And I won’t let yours either. We’re in this together, got it?” Amity sniffed, rubbing the wetness from her eyes. She almost naturally leaned into the human with just a hint of a goofy smile on her face. Her inspirational talks never quite made sense to her, but she would be lying if she wasn’t still very motivated by them, even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

“I presume you’re still not going to settle for anything but that dumb suicide plan of turning yourself in?”

“You would never have changed my mind either way, Amity.” She nodded sadly, having expected this.

“Fine. But if you die on me, I’m going to kill you.” Luz laughed at that. She wished she could listen to that sound forever sometimes, her laugh like a jubilee of musical notes, ringing clear as a bell through the air.

“Alright boss, you got it.” Heat spread to her face as she felt Luz lean in closer, a sly smirk on her face, and place a chaste kiss on her cheek. “Anyways, I think we should probably get going-” Amity cut her off, yanking her into a real kiss. Her temporary shock didn’t last, and Luz all but melted into the contact, holding her face delicately with her other hand.

She wasn’t about to go into the unknown without doing that at least once.

Delicately, she pulled away, but only because this was her chance to pitch the question, no matter how silly it felt to ask right after kissing her again.

“Luz, what are we?” 

“I…” She smiled, glancing away. “Would you believe me if I said I hadn’t expected you to ask that?”

“Yeah, I think I would.” Amity swallowed hard. “But… do you, um, do you want to maybe try this out..? This whole you and I thing?” 

“Blight, that’s a hell of a way to ask somebody out, and right before you’re going to throw me into jail, nonetheless.” She put on her best thinking face. “That’s kinda hot.”

“Ugh- Luz! You little-” 

“I’m joking, I’m joking!” She laughed, putting up her hands defensibly. “Of course. I would love to be your girlfriend.” Luz gently pressed her lips to Amity’s forehead, then stood up. Amity followed suit, securing her helmet atop her head for the first time in almost a week. The aura had made her so uncomfortable that she didn’t ever want to wear it again, but alas, if she wanted to make this look as convincing as possible, she had to. “We do need to get going soon, though. You ready to pull this off,  _ girasol _ ?” 

“Girasol? What’s that?”

“It means sunflower, one of my favorite flowers back home. Your eyes…” She looked away, cheeks lightly flushed. “You have pretty eyes. They remind me of sunflowers.”    
“O-oh. Thank you.”

“Yeah.” Luz rolled her shoulders back, stretching a bit before folding her wrists behind her back. “Cuff me when you’re ready. Then we can go.” Through the foliage, she could see the ring of dirt surrounding the pit, and then, the castle, living within the crevice like a parasite eating away all natural life.

Reluctantly, she grabbed the magical handcuffs out of her bag and clipped them on. 

“No turning back now, I suppose.”

“Mhm. You still have my gear in your bag?” 

“Most of it. I Couldn’t fit that giant green tube inside but I can sneak that in later.”

“Ok.” And so began the death march across the dust ring to the extending drawbridge. Her heart was racketing inside her chest. How could she have ever thought this was a good idea? This was absolutely just a sugarcoated suicide mission, and Amity was taking it out like a stoic executioner. 

They were halfway across the bridge now. She could see her coven sector Amphora, clapping quietly, Kikimora beside them with several scary-looking guards.    
“Well done, Amity Blight. We’ll take her from here.” Oh, how she hadn’t missed Kikimora’s shrill voice. She could almost feel a headache coming on already. 

Reluctantly, she released Luz’s wrists. She stumbled forward with the guards, head bowed in mock defeat.

A hand clapped onto her shoulder.    
“You did good, recruit. Welcome to Amphora.” It was certainly Opal; she could tell that off the height difference alone. But there was something off in her voice. It sounded hoarse, forcefully enthusiastic, like she had been bugged in the middle of a sobbing fit about Amity finally coming back home. 

As they walked back to the hall with their dorm, she saw only the features of Opal that were lacking- the usual pep in her step, how sometimes she would hum songs to make up for the ominous silence of the hallways.

She looked at her feet, quietly shuffling along with everybody else, trying not to think of what might be happening to Luz in the lower chambers of the castle. 

Opal opened the door, and they stepped inside. 

She couldn’t believe she used to see anything joyful about the bleak interior or her peers. They walked like the hypnotized zombies that Belos had made them into. 

Everybody split off to do their night tasks, but Amity found herself naturally drifting to the kitchen, where Opal was searching through the bin of ingredients and pulling out certain things. It looked like it was a beast roast stew. 

Opal pulled down a knife and began dicing potatoes, then onions and carrots, dumping them into a pot of simmering broth. She was still wearing her helmet.

Amity swallowed, watching as she toasted some bread in a cast iron pan. 

What had happened to her? What had happened to her phobia of even touching kitchen utensils and her strong dislike of wearing the helmet outside of mandated times?

“Opal… are you doing ok?” She turned, letting the iron handle go. 

“I’m fine.” Her voice was flat. Amity almost felt like she was talking to a wall, with her gaze only being met by a mask.

“Don’t you…” Amity swallowed, carefully regarding her next few words. “Do you want help?” 

“No.” She turned back to the pot, dropping in a beast hindquarter. “You should really be washing up. You were gone for a month, after all, you must be filthy.” The tone of her voice almost turned sinister, and Amity shuddered, quickly leaving the room.

_ Something _ had clearly happened. She had a scroll in her bag, maybe if she texted Emira…    
She brushed off the thought as she stepped into a shower stall. Titan, she was grimy. 

The hot water streamed down her body and over her face. She watched as the white tile quickly turned brown with each new application of soap.

She was glad nobody else was showering yet- communal washrooms were never really her thing, after being raised in a house with a private bedroom and bathroom which she spent nearly all of her time in. 

Maybe it was just something she would have to get used to though, thinking long term, after she leaves the coven, her and Luz would certainly- 

_ Shit! _

She squinted, trying to wash the shampoo she had mistakenly spilled out of her eyes.

What was she even thinking, ‘long term’? Luz would be going back to live in the human world once this whole debacle was over and she fixed the portal.

“You always were such a hopeless romantic…” Amity bit the inside of her cheek, willing the tears to stop before turning off the water and going back to her dorm. 

Well, at least the rest of her fellow covenists were still somewhat cheery. Each one of them wanted to know every detail of her epic chase and battle of the owl lady’s predecessor, and she did her best to fabricate a tale sure to fulfill each of their… peculiar requests.

“Oh- oh, were there any slitherbeasts?”   
“Of course there were slitherbeasts! All of which I slayed. All on my own.”    
“Woah, Amity, you’re so cool! Were there dragons too? Or basilisks?”   
“Guys, what if she battled one of the great beasts, how cool would that be?” Amity smiled nervously, picking at the chunk of meat in her bowl, not looking particularly appetizing beside the floating potatoes and mushy carrots. 

“Oh, haha, I don’t know about any of that… but I can ensure it was a very intense final battle, which I will retell in full detail… later! Because I’m really tired, after all that fighting that I did… ha…” Amity looked down at her food, then across the table.    
Opal decisively bit a piece of meat off the end of her fork. 

She stood up abruptly, lifting up her tray.    
“Thank you for this meal! I am very tired and will now go rest. Goodnight.” Quickly, she dumped her bowl in the trash and hurried to her dorm, pulling her scroll out of her dresser the moment the door closed behind her. Her contacts list was small; she found the name she was looking for in no time. 

It rang in her ear, once, twice.   
“Hello?” Her sister’s cheerful, muffled voice. 

“Emira. What the fuck happened to Opal?” The line went dead for a moment. 

“Opal..? She told you?”

“Told me what? She hasn’t told me jack shit since I got here, hasn’t taken off her helmet once, said like four things to me, two of which were passive aggressive comments about how I smell, and just ate meat in front of everybody. Opal is a vegetarian!” She paced back and forth in front of her bed. Opal’s change shouldn’t have bugged her as much as it did, but anything on top of the current Luz situation was bound to stress her out beyond belief. 

The image of Opal eating that meat as if it were something completely normal cut back through her brain like a searing knife, followed quickly by another, this one of Luz getting dragged away by guards with the fake look of defeat, or was it-? Could it be that Luz had already accepted her fate of death before even crossing the premises?

A cold feeling spread through her body, running icy blood down to her fingertips. The numbing buzz of white noise filled her head, the waves of calm, but how could she possibly calm down-

“AAGH! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” She disorientedly flung the helmet off, as far across the room as she could, and stumbled back into her bunk. It smacked against her head, registering immediately as pain, and the weird feeling finally subsided. 

She took a moment to regulate her breathing, clutching the rail ladder for support. The mask was still dented from when Luz had almost knocked her clean out, and the eyes still stared back at her like the dead-eyed paintings that followed you in the hall.

She hated this so, so much.

Emira was still on the line. She scoffed and hung up. Emira clearly didn't know what was going on either, so she was going to try to get answers herself.

“Opal.”   
“Amity.” They coldly regarded each other, akin to how enemies would prior to a fight in one of her books. But this was no fairy tale.

The rest of the group had left the common room long ago- they were alone. 

“What happened between you and Emira?” That seemed to strike a nerve. Opal’s finger froze on the page she was turning.

“Emira..?” A hint of emotion seeped back into her voice. SHe took the opportunity, snatching the helmet fastened to her head.

Opal closed her eyes hard, opening them back up after a moment. She raised a hand to her cheek.    
“I…” Tears began streaming out of each of her eyes. “What… what happened to me?” Amity dropped the object, kicking it out of view.   
“Tell me what you remember. I think I’m starting to get a hold on the magic here.”

“I remember, I remember visiting Emira during my break, and then… then she…” Opal hiccupped, crying into her sleeve. It took her a few minutes to calm down.

“After… I remember feeling really lightheaded, and then almost nothing, like I was living the past month in someone else’s body. I can’t… it was like I was being controlled mechanically. Was there an invasion..? Did attackers do this, Amity?” Her eyes were pleading.    
“No. I think… I think it’s Emperor Belos.”

“...what?”

“That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. Using helmets for mind control is not something I’d put him past.” Opal looked extremely distressed at the idea, like she was having a hard time even comprehending the idea of Belos exerting his force on the covenists to keep them all in line.

“I… Belos would…” She gazed at her feet, unfocused. “Shit… what’s today..? Friday?” 

“Saturday. What about it?”

“I’m going to be gone all day tomorrow. You can hold out until I get back, kid?”

“I can do that.” Opal snapped her book shut, scrambling for something- her scroll, clipped on at the hip inside of a leather bag. She scrolled for a moment, her finger hitting a message.

“Titan, I have a lot to do… but I think I can find a way to work on that mind control stuff. I’ll keep you posted.”

“You’re going to help me? Why?” she carefully considered her next words, chewing the inside of her cheek. 

“I still pledge loyalty to my Emperor, but… I never want to experience a violation of my own mind like that again. I’m sure he would understand his subjects doing what they must to be comfortable, after all.”

“Comfort. Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> belos sus vote him out  
> as always leave a comment to save a writer's ass <3


	20. Note to Readers

Hello Unfortunate Ardor fans! I'm making this post as an announcement.  
As you can probably tell, it's been a decent amount of time since this fic has updated. This is because I've reached a sort of standstill with myself- my original plans for this fic versus how ive executed them have caused me to lose a lot of interest in this story, but considering the fact that I still have a lot of story left to cover, I've decided to do something else.  
I will be editing unfortunate ardor in an attempt to make chapters longer, less confusing, and most important of all, compliant to the plotline I have set up.  
This is a notice of Hiatus. With my newer lumity fic Better in Concept doing so well, I already have a notably tight writing schedule, but after it's completion, I will be doing my best to revamp and complete this story.

Thank you for sticking with me,  
El


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